Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all

how often do you clean your cages?

I remove feces daily.
I remove and replace the moss in his plants every weekend.

How often to clean things like branches and other items? or the inside of the cage itself?

Hi Adam,

You might want to reconsider the moss in the plants......
I assume you are covering the dirt with it (the sphaghnum moss).

Here is what can happen:
The moss can be ingested with a bug and cause impaction.
The moss can get caught in the tongue sheath and cause infection (we saw this happen to a melleri - it was an awful death)

We use coconut fiber (that expandable brick) over the dirt - or pretty pebbles (some even lg glass marbles). The only time we use moss - is the living moss - when we plant vivariums for frogs or stumptail chameleons.

Just my $.02......
(food for thought)

sounds good.

I dont free range feed. My wife would kill me if she found a cricket running around. He eats out of little rubbermaid containers ("borrowed" from said wife).

The moss is called eco-peat. use it for PDFs in quarantine. I was thinking of putting screen over the top of it, or river rocks. Something nice - but easy to maintain. Maybe Ill remove the moss--put in rocks...

There are a few things I need to get creative with. Plant drainage for one...

always a work in progress until I get it right.

I think the river rocks will be easy to keep clean.
I don't think you will be sorry for removing the moss.

We cup feed too... but those little cham tongues are busy. You never know what they might shoot at...

bah! I went and did it. Got the rocks.
How often do you clean enclosures?

>>bah! I went and did it. Got the rocks.
>>How often do you clean enclosures?

Great....

We are like you - remove feces regularly, and leaf droppings. As far as taking the cage apart, we find that differs with the different cages we utilize. If we use catch tubs (in solid bottom cages), then we clean them weekly - scrubbing, and using Nolvasan and/or bleach. If it is a bottom drain cage (screen bottom), we squirt them down with Healthy Habitat (uses enzymes to break down organic matter). If there is a need for disinfecting, we use diluted bleach and/or Nolvasan (remove the animals).

We take out the plants to wash them off and prune when needed. If there is lots of droppings on the plant leaves, we squirt those down with soapy water and rinse - or Healthy Habitat.

We have about 200 cages, so this gets to be a project. The Healthy Habitat is a life saver..... it can be used with the chams present. Made by "Natural Chemistry Products" - this is not a plug - just letting you know it is a handy product.

For your cage, finding a catch tub would be a good idea. There are some that are 2ft x 2ft out there. We use a 5gal shop-vac to eliminate the excess drips and moisture from the tubs.
-----

I looked for the 2x2 tubs almost everywhere. went to Home depot, went to traget, fred meyers, and lowes. Nobody had anything!

If you know where to find one I would appreciate it. If that is availalbe - I want to use it to create a false bottom for drainage as well. I have the tubing and such to make it happen...bought all the stuff needed..just cant find the tub.

even a 2.5x2.5 would do.

-adam

Adam,

I believe it is American Agriculture.
I will double check on that for you - but they have almost any size tub you can imagine.... mostly for hydroponic gardening.
-----