Tank cleaning advice!

[StellaSnek]

Hello everybody and Happy Spring!
I recently purchased a 40g tank for our growing beep and it came with rock enclosures as well. I bought it from somebody who had their bearded dragon in it and was wondering the most effective way to clean it before setting it up for her! Thank you in advance


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[SDA]

Bleach. Kills bugs dead.

Take bleach, dilute it to a 10% bleach and 90% water mix and spray it on the glass tank (empty of course). Let it stand for about 30 minutes then take it out back and rinse it off with the garden hose or in your bathtub/shower if the outdoors creep you out.

After that let it dry or towel dry it and you should be good to go. If there are hard water stains on the glass you can use a diluted vinegar solution to spray on and wipe off. Should take off the stains. For stubborn stains, a razor blade works wonders.

I would HIGHLY recommend tossing all the decor that might have came with it or either run it through a sanitize mode in your dishwasher or boil it if they can be. For wood you can bake it at 200 degrees for an hour to kill things off.

The last thing you want is contaminated organisms to invade your snake. Treat everything used you get as infested and you will never have a problem.

[bcr229]

Chlorine bleach does NOT kill cryptosporidium serpentis oocysts. Straight ammonia does. Wash enclosure with soap and water, take it outside, spray with 100% ammonia, let it sit for an hour, rinse well, then re-wash.

If you must do this indoors then do the ammonia part in the bathroom with the exhaust fan on.

[SDA]

I think you mean hydrogen peroxide. It is the only solution that can rapidly lyse crypto cysts. Please never ever mix bleach and ammonia EVER.

Ammonia is not an effective method due to the difficulty to well the human respiratory system's reaction to high concentrations. However let's use common sense here. Simple soap and water then letting a tank dry for a few days is just as effective of a disinfectant as anything that can potentially cause you harm if used improperly. Crypto cysts don't like dry surfaces and can't survive long so time and patience is going to do wonders.

Bleach that you get for whitening your whites is strong enough kill these buggers and even a 10% solution will do it. The misinformation about chlorine not killing cysts is in drinking water filtration and not high concentrations like using over the counter bleach.

If you don't want to hunt all over town for something, just get bleach, dilute it is you want (keep it 10% or higher to be effective) or spray is straight. Let it sit for a few hours then rinse it clean. After that let it dry for a day or two. Easy peasy and not hard to obtain and use.

If you want to get crazy you could boil your tank but that would just be foolish as you would end up with a cracked tank and a bit of anger.

[Craiga 01453]

Interesting...

I've always used a 10% bleach solution with no ill results. I'm just always very careful to make sure it's given plenty of time to air out after a thorough rinse.

I just recently learned about white vinegar on glass thing and it's works beautifully.

[StellaSnek]

What about bleach vs hyrdrogen peroxide?


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