Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, my snake is doing great. Eating every 4 days. Very friendly. His girth increased a bit in the last 2 weeks. But I have noticed something.

The sand blasted grape branch I have in his tank is starting to grow " white fuzzy mold " on it. This is bad, correct ? Is there any way to avoid this? I mean the snake enjoys climbing all over this thing, Id hate to remove it from the tank. Is it possible to just wash it every couple weeks?

Hoping to get some advice.

I'd assume it was bad. clean it thoroughly and will it fit in the microwave? If so, nuke it to kill everything!

Could be an indication the humidity is just a tad to high.

Another climbung branch option could be manzanita, smoother surface, less spots for stuff to get into that mold will grow on.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
13.24 BRB
12.14 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Humidity too high! is it possible lol. I keep it at 75 - 80% at all times. Depending on how the temp. fluxuates. Which is mostly between 72 - 78*F.

Ill take it out, give it a good scrubbing and then see it continues to grow. At one point when I was having issues with humidity I would use a spray bottle quite often. Im thinking that might be the issue. ( it getting wet in the past from that )

Thanks for the reply. Anything else I should know ??

Yes the mold at bare minimum won't be good and almost garunteed is bad. It will most likely encourage respiratory infections.

I have dealt with that type of mold growth on numerous occassions as I tested different substrates, ventillation, and humidity levels. The mold growth is the main reason I went with higher ventilation but much more frequent spraying.

In my sixty gallon(48x18x18 roughly) split tops I just keep one side covered and spray weekly to keep humidity up. As long as you don't have fans running this should work fine for a sphagnum moss substrate. Since running fans in the room for my suboc's I have had to increase the spraying or cover part of the remaining side as well.

Manzanita is definitely more mold resistant but I believe it will also mold unless you seal it with resin. I have no idea what resins might be safe for reptiles in a wet warm environment but suspect epoxy would be most likely bet. Do not take my word on it though, get confirmation from someone who actually knows instead of just taking an educated guess.

As far as fixing and decontaminating your branch there is a potential problem with just microwaving it. While microwaving might kill some things it is not considered disinfecting like heat is because it does not heat all things and hence is hit or miss. This is why microwaved food is considered reheated and not cooked. It is possible for vast quantities of infectious material to survive microwaving but not regular heating because a unconverted microwave signal only agitates water molecules. That is also why microwaveable pot pies have that sivery layer in the box you microwave them in. The silvery layer emits radiant heat when hit by the microwaves.

Because of this I would suggest baking the branch in the oven in addition to/instead of microwaving. This is also the method used to make those home made pet branches from manzanita or some other woods. Just be carefull if baking un treated wood that you have a drip pan under the branch to catch any sapp that seeps.

What I am looking at for mine and you may want to consider given the mold issue, assuming your not too picky about asthetics, is using a climbing unit made from pvc. You can construct it with enough branching to offer good leverage and you can roughen the exterior by hitting it with coarse sandpaper for traction.

Anyways just thought I'd relay my experience with the mold problem. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Bakeing the grape branch works really well. I used to to wash mine, then bake it for 20 minutes at 200 degress. After the 4th or 5th time however, I gave up and pitched it. The pet store had some plastic climbing trees that are almost maintaince free, and my little BRB didn't seem to notice the difference.

Dale

Sean,
..You might want to do some research on microwave disinfection. It is not just the heat in a microwave oven that kills germs, it is primarily the microwave radiation. Microwaves are highly effective and are used to disinfect all sorts of materials including contaminated medical waste.
Jeff

>>Yes the mold at bare minimum won't be good and almost garunteed is bad. It will most likely encourage respiratory infections.
>>
>>I have dealt with that type of mold growth on numerous occassions as I tested different substrates, ventillation, and humidity levels. The mold growth is the main reason I went with higher ventilation but much more frequent spraying.
>>
>>In my sixty gallon(48x18x18 roughly) split tops I just keep one side covered and spray weekly to keep humidity up. As long as you don't have fans running this should work fine for a sphagnum moss substrate. Since running fans in the room for my suboc's I have had to increase the spraying or cover part of the remaining side as well.
>>
>>Manzanita is definitely more mold resistant but I believe it will also mold unless you seal it with resin. I have no idea what resins might be safe for reptiles in a wet warm environment but suspect epoxy would be most likely bet. Do not take my word on it though, get confirmation from someone who actually knows instead of just taking an educated guess.
>>
>>As far as fixing and decontaminating your branch there is a potential problem with just microwaving it. While microwaving might kill some things it is not considered disinfecting like heat is because it does not heat all things and hence is hit or miss. This is why microwaved food is considered reheated and not cooked. It is possible for vast quantities of infectious material to survive microwaving but not regular heating because a unconverted microwave signal only agitates water molecules. That is also why microwaveable pot pies have that sivery layer in the box you microwave them in. The silvery layer emits radiant heat when hit by the microwaves.
>>
>>Because of this I would suggest baking the branch in the oven in addition to/instead of microwaving. This is also the method used to make those home made pet branches from manzanita or some other woods. Just be carefull if baking un treated wood that you have a drip pan under the branch to catch any sapp that seeps.
>>
>>What I am looking at for mine and you may want to consider given the mold issue, assuming your not too picky about asthetics, is using a climbing unit made from pvc. You can construct it with enough branching to offer good leverage and you can roughen the exterior by hitting it with coarse sandpaper for traction.
>>
>>Anyways just thought I'd relay my experience with the mold problem. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

That might be the case for certain things.

My information and experience I was relaying does not come from the medical or biohazard field but from food and health standards, specifically in regards to humans.

While there are I'm sure many things that do get killed by microwaves there are also enough that do not, but which are killed by heat, to cause microwave sterilization to be unaccepable for the food buisness.

In fairness to your point and for my own information I checked out some of the microwave disinfection info after my last post.

It is true they are using microwave disinfection to great effect and I'm glad to hear it. However it doesn't really apply to your home microwave. My points about how a microwave works and what it does are still valid. The difference with the biohazard sterilization with microwaves is they are infusing steam into the ground pulp to be disinfected and then microwaving the resultant mixture. This is simply making sure there is extremely effective heat dispersal from the agitated water molecules into the surrounding material and hence cooking the material to death/sterilization. On a somewhat related but off topic note the maximum effectiveness of heat for disinfection is also the reason that extreme firebomb clusters or nuclear explosions were for a long time, and still as far as I know, viewed as the only way to sanitize an area of certain resilient bio/chemical threats.

Either way, while microwave sterilization has progressed much farther then I had realized it has not changed in terms of your home microwave.

Sorry about the serial posts, I'm used to forums where I have access to modify my own posts.

I just wanted to add that I by no means meant to be confrontational I was just relaying my experience and data as I understood it. If you have information on the microwave sterilization that is different or more up to date then what I came across then please pass it along. I would always rather be corrected and informed then continue under incorrect assumptions.

Sean,
..We BOTH needed to do more research on this subject. Some of what I know about using microwave radiation to kill germs is from a college microbiology class I took awhile back. I just did a google search and found quite a bit of information about using kitchen microwaves to disinfect all sorts of things even including contact lenses. I was wrong about heat not playing a major role in microwave disinfection. In studies using microwaves to disinfect kitchen sponges they found that wetting the sponge resulted in better germ kill results because the water turned to steam and the heat of the steam more thoroughly spread within the sponge and killed the germs.
Jeff
Microwaving kitchen sponges to kill germs

Thanks for posting the link, I'll check it out later tonight when I've got a minute.

Yeah I realized after the first or second post that I was still operating on 4 hours of sleep and was probably being unreasonably confrontational especially given the lack of taking more time to update info. Most of my experience was with either food prep/handling and dealing with health inspections/regulations a bit back. I never did the microbio cause my lab skills sucked lol, always second guessed whether what I was seeing was what I thought it should be or something else that just respembled it.

Anyways, sorry and thanks again for the link.

Sean,
..You made me go do some reading and learn something new. That is a good thing.
Life is good,
Jeff

>>Thanks for posting the link, I'll check it out later tonight when I've got a minute.
>>
>>Yeah I realized after the first or second post that I was still operating on 4 hours of sleep and was probably being unreasonably confrontational especially given the lack of taking more time to update info. Most of my experience was with either food prep/handling and dealing with health inspections/regulations a bit back. I never did the microbio cause my lab skills sucked lol, always second guessed whether what I was seeing was what I thought it should be or something else that just respembled it.
>>
>>Anyways, sorry and thanks again for the link.

What I use on my branch (and entire enclosure a couple times a year) is a bleach solution. Most will suggest a 5 % solution of bleach and water. Thoroughly and liberally clean the branch with this solution and let sit for about an hour. After its dried somewhat rinse it until you think there could be no way any bleach could still be present and then rinse it some more (really rinse). Also do this for the enclosure. After everything has dried and aired out set it up and you should be good to go. When you start seeing mold again just repeat. As long as you rinse thoroughly and air out completly the weak bleach solution will not pose a harm to your snake. There may be some other, safer, products on the market now but I've never had problems using a solution of bleach and water. Did I mention to rinse thoroughly?
Good luck,
Paul

Grapevine is notorious for molding (and sometimes turning to mush) in a high humidity environment. If you clean it off, it will only start again. I would take it out and find a dense wood that isn't full of sap. Basically look for wood intended on using underwater in a fish aquarium. (cypress and hard drift woods work well).
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photos.xtremecombatsports.com

...I think the fact that the grapevine forms mold is a good sign that you have your cage humidity at a good level. Grapevine looks very nice but as you have found will rapidly form mold and not last so long in a humid cage whether you clean it or not. I think the cypress and drift wood that were mentioned are both much better choices than grapevine. Cypress can last for a very long time in a wet cage. If you get driftwood that has been in the ocean for awhile it will have plenty of salt in it which will help to prevent the formation of mold.
Jeff

>>Well, my snake is doing great. Eating every 4 days. Very friendly. His girth increased a bit in the last 2 weeks. But I have noticed something.
>>
>>The sand blasted grape branch I have in his tank is starting to grow " white fuzzy mold " on it. This is bad, correct ? Is there any way to avoid this? I mean the snake enjoys climbing all over this thing, Id hate to remove it from the tank. Is it possible to just wash it every couple weeks?
>>
>>Hoping to get some advice.

..in my garage for all but the first 3 months. Molds much too quickly. I've even put the stuff in an autoclave....even then it only retards the growth.

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When the student is ready, the teacher appears. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. When the student is ready, the teachers appears.

soaking them in a chlorhexidine solution?
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---------JAMIE ROTH---------

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