white substance appearing in habitat?

[hberry221b]

I've been noticing some white tipped chips in my cypress mulch lately and today I came back from school to see that a kind of white substance had developed over my water bowl and a little on one of my hides as well. I'm not sure what it is, and I don't know if it's related but lately whenever I clean up my bp's poop or urates the smell hasn't seemed to go away, even after a couple days. It's not as strong as if there were a fresh urate, but the smell seems to linger. Is this connected to the white substance? I haven't clean his cage since I got him, not even a month yet, I was going to clean it for the first time after about 2 months.


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[hberry221b]

here's some pictures:


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[Slim]

Looks like smeared urates to me.

[Lizardlicks]

Possibly also mold. What's your humidity usually at and how often to you clean you do spot cleaning? How often you you clean/sanitize his furnishings? Also, if it's getting stinky I would recommend just changing it out anyway. About once a month for a full substrate change is good, but if your snake is getting it really soiled then don't hold off a good cleaning.

[lorrainesmom]

That looks like mold to me as well. I sometimes see something like that in the mulch around my shrubbery on the shady side of my house after its either been particularly humid or raining alot.

[hberry221b]

Humidity is typically around 55-65%, and yeah the smell was having me lean towards cleaning things sooner than later. I'm surprised though, it's only been a month so far I didn't expect things to get dirty so quickly. I don't have any specifically reptile safe cleaning products, so is vinegar or dish soap alright? and would I just keep my bp in a separate container during this time? I ask because I don't have another enclosure I can heat and my house is kept around 68-69 degrees, don't want him to catch an RI from being out too long.


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[hberry221b]

Possibly also mold. What's your humidity usually at and how often to you clean you do spot cleaning? How often you you clean/sanitize his furnishings? Also, if it's getting stinky I would recommend just changing it out anyway. About once a month for a full substrate change is good, but if your snake is getting it really soiled then don't hold off a good cleaning.

Also, I've only had everything in there since New Year's Eve so nothing has been cleaned thoroughly since then, unless there was poop on something, in that case I rubbed that area down with a bit of soap. And I spot clean whenever I see he's gone to the bathroom.


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[Lizardlicks]

Yeah, I would give everything a good cleaning about once a month. You can use vinegar or diluted bleach solution (I've done a 10:1 solution of water:bleach when I'm out of cleaning stuff). Just make sure to rinse well and let dry before putting the snake and its stuff back in. And it shouldn't take too long to clean one enclosure that you have to worry about your snake getting RI. At a guess, my tubs take 15 minutes each, tops.

[Aztec4mia]

Looks like smeared urates to me.

^^This, touch it and see if it is hard and chalky, it could be both with mold growing on the urate pieces sitting in there. take out those pieces and give it a good cleaning, I have yet to see mold grow randomly on cypress mulch, even when it is damp. There has to be something else for the mold to feed on; if not, every bag of forest bedding would turn white while they are sitting on the store shelves.

[hberry221b]

^^This, touch it and see if it is hard and chalky, it could be both with mold growing on the urate pieces sitting in there. take out those pieces and give it a good cleaning, I have yet to see mold grow randomly on cypress mulch, even when it is damp. There has to be something else for the mold to feed on; if not, every bag of forest bedding would turn white while they are sitting on the store shelves.

it actually is hard and chalky, so that's probably what it is. thanks to all of you guys, I'll probs just end up cleaning his entire enclosure anyway


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