Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It is awful hard to remove dried on urates from those blk plastic cages, soaking just smears it and it's hard to find something to use witout damaging it in the process, i will try a puddy scraper, but any thoughts of other ways??
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1.4 various boas(Flicka,Felony,Nova,Alias,Abby)
0.1 BRB Abalone; ABBI
1.0 Rott X (OSO)
2.0 cats (Simba, Morris)

fish & feeders

Well, I use paper for substrate and make sure it rides up the walls an inch or two so almost never get it on the cage itself. When I do, let it dry to rock hard the knock it loose and scrub it off.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

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

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

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

i soak the inside of the cage with water, then lay newspaper on it and all on the edges, but they manage to find a place to dig under, i have been soaking but rock hard chiping sound better, i used hot water and soaked and scraped and took both out, and all went well, mananged to feed the male at the same time .
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1.4 various boas(Flicka,Felony,Nova,Alias,Abby)
0.1 BRB Abalone; ABBI
1.0 Rott X (OSO)
2.0 cats (Simba, Morris)

fish & feeders

talk about urates and their feces sometimes requires a jackhammer to get off enclosures lol
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Frank Roberts
Roberts' Realm Of Reptile Research

I have had this problem before, not just with my BRB but with some of my other reptiles. Urates are acidic and thus, tend to eat away plastic (not a huge amount but enough to practically cement themselves to it). For small spots I just use my thumb nail to scrap it off. Or, for those who don't have hard thumb nails or cut their nails short (or don't like the ideal of using a thumbnail) other things I have used that work great on plastic bins is pot scrubbers. The metal ones are good (not SOS pads, these are too 'sharp' but the bigger wider metal balls). These scratch the plastic a bit but not signficant to be a concern..maybe in 10 years of scrubbing the same spot will wear out the plastic enough to put a hole in it....

Of course, buy a pot scrubber to use exclusively in reptile cages, don't use it on your pots later LOL.

i soaked with HOT water for 10 min then used a copper scrubber or a pocket knife, a plastic or metal putty scraper also works great. then again those who have substrate other than newspaper, hows that working>? they scoot it aside and it still finds it's way to the cage. Ok these boaphiles are fire proof, but need a urate proof one lol i cleaned it the best i could but will always have a white residue there.
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1.4 various boas(Flicka,Felony,Nova,Alias,Abby)
0.1 BRB Abalone; ABBI
1.0 Rott X (OSO)
2.0 cats (Simba, Morris)

fish & feeders

lol. We have newspaper for our male boas, and aspen for our females (for their comfort while breeding), and coconut husk/moss for the BRBs. Newspaper is easy cleanup, so is the coconut husk (scoop it, replace it), but they just push the aspen aside and leave us a horrible mess.
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1.1 96, 04 Het Albino - "Suzie" & "Lumpy"
0.1 03 Poss. Het Albino - "Ami"
0.1 05 Super Salmon - "CreamSicle"
0.1 04 Anery Het Snow- "Squelchy"
1.0 04 DH-Sunglow - "Dwayne"
1.0 06 TH-Moonglow - "Gargamel"
1.2 01 BRBs- "Gobball", "Larva" & "Tofu"