Hey guys,

I need help. I was cleaning my pinstripe's cage today and when I removed the water bowl I found this black stuff underneath of the water bowl.





First off the black stuff was only underneath the waterbowl, but five possibilities came to mind. Mold, Mites, Rubbed Paper Towl, Plastic shavings from the rack, or Ceramic from the Ceramic Bowl.

My Thoughts on the Mold: The mold I guess makes a little bit of since, but it's only been about 10 days since last cleaned. And if it were mold I would think that it would have grown to other areas in the tub.

My Thoughts on Mites: I really don't think that it's mites because I checked the snake real well before I put it back in the cleaned tub and there were no signs on the belly, around the eyes, or my hands and I wore white gloves to be extra sure.

My Thoughts on Rubbed Paper Towl: This kinda makes since because the paper towl was wet underneath the bowl and paper towl can get nasty when its wet and something rubs back and forth across it, but I'm finding it really hard to believe that the snake went back and forth across the paper towel enough to rub wet paper towl off. Although she was pretty active this week.

My Thoughts on Ceramic: This one makes the most sense to me. I use cheap ceramic water dishes from the dollar store as my water dishes. I could see the black ceramic rubbing off, but the only thing that makes no sense about this is that there's no sign of it being rubbed of on the water bowl. And none of my other cages show signs of this.

My Thoughts on the shavings: This is about exactly what the black stuff looked like if you've ever received a new plastic rack system, but I'm positive that I wiped the cage out well before I introduced here to the tub. Plus even if I missed some, why would and how would they have all concentrated underneath the water bowl?

Anyway I cleaned the cage out extremely well with cleaner and disinfectant. I'm really looking forward to what everyone has to say. For now I'll sit back patiently and see what happens next week when I clean.

Thanks,
Mike

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