Possible bleach-tainted water?

[Charles8088]

My ball python's 5-inch water bowl got a chip in it, so I went out and got a new water bowl, one bigger, so as to help with humidity.

I picked up one of those extra large poly-resin water dish by Exo-Terra.

Anyways... I changed the bowl out yesterday. Took the new Exo-Terra dish, and soaked it in a bleach/water mix for about 10 minutes. Then I took it out, rinsed it well (or, so I believe it was rinsed well), and gave it the smell-test, making sure there was absolutely no hint of bleach smell. Then I also gave it a scrub with anti-bacterial dish soap (probably should have done the soap first).

Anyways... all seemed good. Filled it up with water, and put it in the enclosure.

On a side note, my girl ate last on Friday the 23rd.

Today, everything looks fine. Humidity seems to be staying put more with the new dish. I go to change the water in the dish and when I open the sliding doors I get a nice smell, not too strong, but enough since its a little hot and humid in there, of bleach. Again, not overwhelming, but you can definitely smell it. Obviously a bit concerning, but I take the bowl out and I notice where the water line is it actually stained the water dish where the water was. You can see the water line/stain that was left in the pic below. Obviously, there had to be some bleach leeching off the bowl to stain the water.

My girl looks fine. I lifted the hide to look at her, and she was just coiled up looking fine. Didn't take her out, as she looked comfortable, and I just wanted to take care of this bleach problem now.

I took the bowl out, gave it another cleaning (just using dish soap), heavy rinsing again, and left it outside to dry this time. I put the old bowl with the chip back in there for now. But, will probably put something else in there, cause I don't like the possibility of injury in that chip.

So... do I need to worry? Not sure if she drank any water. I'm guessing she at least went by the water dish, because I keep the a thermometer near it, and that was toppled over... meaning she was probably by the water. But, don't know if she drank it. Hoping that they would sense/smell/taste tainted water and not drink?!?

[Melluns07]

What is the ratio for the bleach solution you make? I have been using a watered down mix of Clorox cleanup. It is already a mild bleach cleaner and watering it down further makes it even milder. I usually take a bottle that is about 1/4 full and fill it with water. I just recently picked up the same water dish. I sprayed it with my solution and ran it under hot water then let is soak in hot water for about 20 minutes, changing the water once at 10 mins. After that I let it air dry. I did not have a bleach smell after using it. As far as your snake I would also tend to think they could smell the water is not right and would probably not drink it, then again I am not a biologist, I have no idea if that is credible or not, just an assumption. Lost of people say you want to keep it at about 1 part bleach to 16 parts water. If you are over that, it is too strong. Also, it is MUCH better to let items cleaned with bleach air dry, bleach evaporates by itself fairly quickly, however it will not evaporate out of or off of water. This means trying to "rinse" bleach off is not nearly effective as letting it "dry" off if that makes sense, it just takes longer. The key is getting ALL of the moisture out. Hope this helps! BTW do you have an Animal plastic enclosure?

Also, here is some info on bleach evaporating: Chlorine bleach will evaporate within a short period of time. If the area is not dry when the bleach evaporates, or moisture is still in the contaminated area (humidity, outside air dampness), you could re- start the contamination process immediately and to a greater degree. Chlorine is a key component of DIOXIN.

[Sunnieskys]

I have the same water dish. I don't use bleach at all. I use the dishwasher or just dish soap to clean.

[Melluns07]

Lucky you lol Mine was so filthy from the store, I just did a hot wash with dawn first too...and when I pulled it out of brown water I was like this is getting the bleach LOL. It probably sat on that shelf for years.

[Charles8088]

Coming from the store, the goal was to do a first-time disinfect and clean... but, I guess the bleach didn't work out as the best idea. I do, however, have the dishwasher soap that I use on some other items monthly, and will throw this dish into THAT loop. Plus, now I can start using the F10SCXD that I wasn't using much of anyways.

Good news, however, seems that my girl was ok. She probably never drank from it, and she probably never even went by it. So, she's safe.

[viper69]

I've always used ceramic bowls because chemicals may leach from plastic OR leach into plastic. I've also found the ExoTerra bowls end up getting a little covered in white minerals over time, whereas in the same location my ceramic bowls did not.