Washing tank accessories

[chinchillachic18]

I was wondering how you should clean your tank plants and other things like that. I have this one plant that has plastic leaves but a coconut wood base...
So how do i clean that? Just with hot water? and is that how you clean all tank accessories? just with hot water? or is there some kinda of special soap you can use

[Drew87]

When i clean hides, fill up a bucket put a little bleach ( A LITTLE ) some warm water let it sit for about 30 min, take it out scrub it down and wash untill i cant smell bleach anymore. hope this helps

[PythonWallace]

I use chlorahehadine solution, or you can use a 5%-10% bleach solution. Then I soak/rinse really well and let everything air dry. If I have anything made of wood, I dry it in the oven after rinsing. 225 degrees until it's completely dry.

[uafgrad]

10% bleach solution is a pretty hard to beat for cleaning agents. It pretty much kills everything that you need to worry about

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I use this http://www.agri-med.com/site/255063/product/CHLRHN2S16 and also bleach out everything on a regular basis.

[Mindibun]

I never use bleach; I can't stand the smell of it and it's SO bad for the environment - why would I want it around me or my animals? When I clean the tank stuff, I'll use any number of things but I always soak everything in a bucket for 20-30 minutes. In the past, I've used Dawn dish soap, I've used natural salt water, eco-friendly laundry detergent, etc. It all depends on what's handy at the time. If it's still dirty when I take it out, then I soak it again for a few minutes and scrub it. If there's any sort of smell to it, it's not clean.

[simplechamp]

The key is, no matter what cleaning agent you use, make sure all residues and odors are completely gone before putting the items back into the enclosure.

[JayBP]

I let everything soak in in a 5-10% bleach solution then I scrub it down and rinse everything of really good and let it dry and hand wipe it down if it doesnt fully dry out.

[Drew87]

The key is, no matter what cleaning agent you use, make sure all residues and odors are completely gone before putting the items back into the enclosure.

I agree i always worry about it not being all gone so i wash it like 3 more times to make sure

[nevohraalnavnoj]

I use Chlorhexadine from www.reptilebasics.com.

Keep in mind that you don't need to go nuts with the cleaning. A ball python's cage should be clean, but not necessarily aseptic. Don't worry about bleaching it every week to kill all the bacteria. The Barker's point out that when they clean on a daily basis they "clean the brown"...other than that, they don't stress over it.

A complete cleaning is warranted on occasion, but the time will vary based on how big your BP is, what the substrate is, your husbandry practices, etc...

JonV