Mold growing near and under water dish in my snake rack

Well my girlfriend was checking on our snakes and noticed mold growing under their water dishes as well as near them. I'm sure that some spills occur when we replace their water because some of the tubs are pretty snug and a little difficult to pull out and put back into the rack, and a few of the tubs don't keep great humidity so we do have to spray them about once a day. I'm sure this probably contributed to the issue. We're using aspen bedding to, which after this incident I've learned is known to grow mold easily? Would any of you have recommendations on what action to take? Maybe switching to a different bedding? Newspapers? Or something different? Has anyone came across this problem before? Thanks for any help, greatly appreciated.

A lot of people use aspen and have seen some mention mold on occasion. I use aspen in all my tanks and found spilled water which is left to linger for an extended period on shaved aspen can produce green mold. I have swapped that particular snake's water bowl as he likes to spill his water and have not had a problem since. I've also switched to shredded aspen opposed to the shaved stuff.

Paper towels or cypress mulch are good alternatives. Cypress does help keep humidity up or using sphagum(sp?) moss.

Okay thanks. I'm thinking about newspaper or paper towels.. I think it's just weird that all of a sudden mold showed up in multiple tubs at the same time.

Didn't notice the plural in dishes and such. Thought you were only having an issue in one tub. Some people put more holes in the tubs to help regulate temps/humidity. So the tubs you may have high humidity in, add a couple more holes. You may also want to consider how much you spray the enclosure. I spray lightly 1-2x/day during shed. I'm also lucky enough to have 2 large turtle aquariums create a nice humid layer in my apartment. :D

Perhaps it is a good time to start a turtle or fish hobby to help with the humidity. ;) :D

I have 2 turtle tanks in the room with my snakes... humidity stays about 60 in my rack, I use Aspen bedding and haven't had any issues. I don't spray the tubs at all

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

It's hard to provide air flow under a water dish. Towel dry the bottoms of those dishes before you put them back and you'll probably nip that under the bowl mold in the bud.

Cypress helps maintain humidity and it doesn't mold like aspen does. One of my tubs is a bit tight and the water does slop if I fill the bowl up too high, but the cypress soaks it right up and I've never seen any signs of mold. I also use it in my Brazilian Rainbow Boa enclosures which are maintained at 75% humidity (higher when they're in shed) and have never had a mold problem with them either.

Cypress is anti-microbial so you may want to switch. Paper towels also cut down this issue a lot.


I think if there is mold consistently across the tubs like that you should consider your cleaning practices - what do you use, how often, what is your process start to finish on how you clean and disinfect the tubs?

*Enter Kitedemon*

My girlfriend and I spot clean and change water everyday. I'll start making sure the bottoms of the dishes are completely dry before putting them back in and I'll be more careful sliding the tubs back into the racks. If I were to switch to paper towels, how often do you swap out the towels and do you clean every time you swap out the towels? Can you spray a tub with paper towel bedding to help with humidity? Etc. And a question about Cypress.. how does it smell? I know a weird question but, my girlfriend is very sensitive with smells. We tried buying a different type of Aspen before but it had a strong smell and she couldn't take it, we have to buy the Aspen from Petco that's like $21 per bag and doesn't have much of an odor to it.

My girlfriend can't handle any kind of moss either, drives her allergies crazy. I appreciate the input everyone!