Uri help!

[kuester]

I have a 7.5ft, 16.5lb. aregentine/columbian boa cross i rescued back in april. The previous owner knew he had a URI for 3 + years and did nothing about it.... he was open mouth breathing all the time, had mucus constantly clogging his trachea, his fork in his tongued couldnt even split the mucus was so thick, his mouth was white all over.... i brought him to the vet and they said even with antibiotics it could go either way, after a month of daily injections he was healthy but still made some strange noises at times when breathing i was told this was due to scarring on his respiratory tract. I cleaned his cage with a 10% bleach solution, rinsed 5 times with hoy water and air/fan dried for 3 days. I keep his hot spot at 95F, cool side is 78, humidity is around 55-60%. I moved 2 weeks ago into a basement and he has a URI again... so i got him on injections again for 2 weeks starting 12/22/15. His mouth still has good pink color, theres quite a bit of mucus, he has swelling on the top of his nose but hes eating good still. I asked the vet if i should purchase F10SC(as its been recommended by other herp keepers) to clean, sanitize and disinfect the enclosure. My vet said not to use it and just use hot water to clean the cage. She said the F10SC could be enhaled but the tender, irritated respiratory tissues and since it seems like he has chronic URIs to just use hot water. I need to know what will be the best for my Gluttony. I have no other enclosures to put him in for now, I'm hoping for a quick method so i can do it all in one day and place him back in the same day i start cleaning. When should i do the cleaning(before hes declared healthy or after?) What should i use to do it? Can the cleaner also be used on his repticarpet and water tub?

[bcr229]

F10SC is fine, you could always rinse the enclosure afterward. Barring that a steam cleaner/sanitizer would also work and would be very fast to use if you are keeping a minimalistic setup for your snake. I'm talking about something like this:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Bissell-Ho...39N71/14320774

I wouldn't use repti-carpet at all, it's known for harboring bacteria. Use newspaper and replace it regularly. You should have several water bowls, put in a clean one and run the used one through the dishwasher.

Also did the vet do a culture & sensitivity test to see which antibiotic is appropriate for the URI? If not that may be why it came back, the first round of antibiotics didn't kill it all off.

Good luck with your rescue.

[kuester]

Okay i replace the reptile carpets about once a month and soak them in hot water once a week, rinse and air dry. He has a 7gallon tub for water too big to put through dishwasher.

[bcr229]

Okay i replace the reptile carpets about once a month and soak them in hot water once a week, rinse and air dry. He has a 7gallon tub for water too big to put through dishwasher.

That's 48 quarts for water... how big is his enclosure? Also if you're down in a basement is it cooler and more humid than where you used to live? You might be able to get away with a smaller water container and still keep decent humidity in the enclosure.