Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've turned to the dark side. It's fake plants for Squirt from here on out, irregardless of whether or not his condition improves. It's getting frustrating.

I had some questions. First of all, the only kinds of fake plants I can find have what we'll call a stem. How do you get these things to stand up straight in your cages?

Also, how do you guys sanitize your plants? Where does the water go when you mist your cages at night? Do you bin feed your insects? (if you feed insects at all)

Thoinx!
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2.2 Corn Snakes
1.2 Leopard Geckos
1.1 Crested Geckos
1.2 Green Anoles
1.0 Russian Tortoise
3.2 House Cats
0.0.1 African Millipede

RIP
Alice, Bruno, Lars

Dark side... sheesh. Lose your first gecko to parasites and you'll appreciate the sanitation ability of fake plants. Just giving you a hard time.

Go buy the smallest bottle of bleach you can find and follow the directions, it is something like 1 Tbs to a gallon of water. We always use too much and you can really fumigate yourself if you do that, I don't suggest that. We mix in a small squirt (pun not intended) bottle, go outside or the bathtub spray everything down and then rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse. If you are doing an enclosure too, just fill the enclosure with the mixture and swish everything inside that. (We also keep a bucket for this sort of thing.) The most important thing is to rinse more than you think you need to and dry. (There are commercial reptile sanitizers, but they're just as bad as bleach and have the same warnings like "don't put plants in until fumes are gone".) This is easiest if you have a driveway, or borrow someone's, and use a hose, really and sun dry. Check to make sure nothing smells like bleach when you are done.

Umm... All my plants have huge bases, could you do something like nontoxic glue paper mache over Styrofoam or maybe make an air dried clay base? I don't know, I'm out of my element here.

The water goes where it always goes, not many real plants absorb water through their leaves, so you'll get droplets and little pools on the fake leaves and the rest will go into the substrate just like before.

Have fun!
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
0.1 Crested Gecko
1.0 Dear Boyfriend
Departed: Harvey and Spock

I kept killing the real plants so I have fakes too. I buy the leafy vines when Garden Ridge clearances them. Then, I twirl them around the cork vine that you can buy at Petco/Petsmart. I sometimes get a leafy branch to secure at the top to make one section fuller with leaves. My guy loves this. Ditto on the dilute chlorox and rinsing it very well.

Wait, Sleepy. What are you using for substrate? Eco-Earth is molding like crazy for some reason right now, that is one of the main reasons i'm switching out. It's find in my girl's enclosure, but the anoles and Squirt's cage are disgusting. I was thinking of maybe just using hydrotron as a base, if I even use something at all. Papertowels may have to be the way to go.
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2.2 Corn Snakes
1.2 Leopard Geckos
1.1 Crested Geckos
1.2 Green Anoles
1.0 Russian Tortoise
3.2 House Cats
0.0.1 African Millipede

RIP
Alice, Bruno, Lars

Papertowels of course, haven't you seen my numerous rants? We live in a high mold area, it is nasty stuff that attacks everything especially the window sills. We wouldn't dream of anything else for our crested just for the ease of switching it out. I do suggest not only using it as a substrate, but scattering some crumpled up sections around the bottom to use as cover and my girl makes nests with them.

I have to say for high humidity substrates my knowledge is very limited, we simply couldn't use anything else. But the paper towels hold just enough humidity and we allow them to slightly dry during the day and mist at night. It works well for us.
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
0.1 Crested Gecko
1.0 Dear Boyfriend
Departed: Harvey and Spock