Healthy Habitat Cleaner and Deodorizer

[Bogertophis]

so this stuff, will do everything, like in the healthy habitat? Just dilute down? Does this help with odor? And safe to spray everything in a cage down? Water dish? Fake plants ETC?

To clean my tanks, I remove furnishings (hides, branches, water bowl) & all debris (including substrate and feces). This or ANY disinfectant works best when NOT in the presence of biological debris (feces & dirt). So I spray down the now-empty tanks with diluted chlorhexidine & optimally let them sit for about 20 minutes for maximum germ-killing. You can wipe it dry sooner, but just not as effective. This stuff has a very slight fresh scent- not noticeable when dry. You do NOT need to rinse it off the cage walls/floor, but it MUST BE DRY.

BTW, I also use diluted chlorhexidine spray to wipe & dry all rodent cages too. I've used this stuff for about 3 decades now, lol, though I've also tried a few other things along the way, including the chemically very similar "Nolvasan" (which is far more expensive), & the newer F10 (which also cost more, & is also diluted).

To clean hides, fake plants, or water bowls: spray liberally just as with the cage, but water bowls MUST be rinsed out, not just dried. Hides or branches/decor can just be dry prior to contact with the snake. Note: I periodically spray branches liberally with diluted chlorhexidine, then allow to air dry in hot sun. Been doing this way many years of keeping many healthy snakes.

Water bowls, IMO, are best cleaned using just undiluted white vinegar (the stuff in your kitchen & laundry room), because it's a mild antiseptic but also dissolves hard water (mineral) deposits.

Odors come from fecal material that remains when cages are only "spot-cleaned" ineffectively. If the cage smells, it needs a full clean out, not something to "deodorize" it.

Chlorhexidine is also found in mouthwashes (used by humans) & is sometimes used in wound care, or skin disinfection (prior to surgery) etc. In pure form as shown it can be bought by the gallon or pint from feed stores (it's widely used in dairy farming etc) or online- from various sources. You dilute it SO much that unless you have a great many snakes, you don't want to buy a gallon jug- a pint will last you a very long time: use one ounce per gallon of water. ​ It's good stuff because it's effective, safe, easy to use (no rinsing, just wipe cages dry) & very budget-friendly. (It's NOT for internal ingestion or inhalation, please stick to external surface uses on cages & stuff.)

(note: "Healthy habitat" is a totally different kind of product- it uses enzymes to neutralize )