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Moss collected outdoors?

MissMiniZoo Jun 01, 2004 01:29 AM

Would it be okay to collect moss & other plants from outdoors to plant in a FBT enclosure? Do all rocks and wood need to be disinfected with a bleach solution before putting them into the FBT enclosure? I'm assuming they do, since they need to be disinfected for use in an iguana enclosure.

Thanks in advance for any help offered!
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~Heather~
3 German Shepherd Dogs (Tasha, Kaiya, & Austin)
1 Iguana (Irwin)
4 Firebelly Toads (Kirby, Gus, Pico, & Tiki)
1 African Cichlid (Arnie)
2 Red-Eared Sliders (coming soon!!)
Check out my website with most of my pets!

Replies (6)

TANZEE Jun 01, 2004 11:16 PM

I am not sure the answer for the plants, but I just recently posted a question regarding rocks from the outdoors, and someone told me to just wash them well with water. I believe that the person might have said that bleach and soaps were not good to use.

Tanzee

EdK Jun 02, 2004 09:24 AM

It depends on the reasoning behind disinfection. If the goal is prevent the possibility of an outside pathogen from being introduced into the enclosure then the use of the plants and materials collected from outside should be avoided. (areas that are subject to pesticide and herbicide drift should also be avoided).
Nonporous materials such as some stones, or gravel may be disinfected with a bleach solution after they have been well scrubbed. The bleach can then be removed with a soak in a solution made with a commercial dechlorinater.
Porous material needs to be boiled or autoclaved for at least 15 minutes to insure that it is sterile. I strongly do not recommend heating any items that may contain water. Once they are heated past the temperature where water boils the item may explode. (This includes green woods). Heating baking them in an oven where they can get above the boiling point of water is exremely risky.

With all of that said, many of the bacterial pathogens are always present in amphibian enclosures. (Such as red leg, Psedomonads and Aeromonada are present in all moist soil and aquatic enclosures). So attempting to avoid these through the use of sterile items does not make sense as they will just recolonize the items later. (However if you do have an outbreak of redleg, I would recommend sterilizing the enclosure on the chance a more pathnogenic strain had developed.)
Avoidance of parasites make more sense but other that a group in the nematode family these are usually transmitted through consumuption of infected food items.) This is not the case in reptiles where they can aquire potentially fatal cryptosporidial infections through contaminated items).

Avoidance of pesticide and herbicide contamination, this is a valid reason but disinfection often will not remove or denature these items.

Ed

TANZEE Jun 02, 2004 01:02 PM

Thanks for the educated reply! One more question I have, is about the rocks from outside..
I live in Northern Canada, where it is clean and the only real pests are misquitoes...so if I collect rocks from outside, or even sticks/logs, do I really have to worry about baceria or pathogens?

Tanzee

PS-I doubt I'll be collecting sticks or logs from outside...but definitely rocks.

EdK Jun 02, 2004 02:19 PM

The only pathogen you may have to be concerned with it is chytridiomycosis which is a soil dwelling fungal pathogen of amphibians potentially resulting in the death of the anuran.
I am sort of the mind that all amphibians in captivity should be considered to have been exposed to chytrid and managed that way as it has been located in at least one importers and several Zoo collections.
To clean the rocks scrub them with warm water and then soak them in a bleach solution for 15 minutes. After that soak them in dechlorinator sold for fish tanks. (If you can still smell bleach repeat). Let air dry for a couple of days and you should be good to go.

Ed

kane65 Jun 04, 2004 12:05 PM

Rinsing rocks isn't enough. They should either be backed at 350 for 20 minutes (for non-porous rocks) or soaked in bleach for a few hours. If you take the bleach route, rinse well then leave in the sun for a week or so or soak in water with a lot of chlorine remover. For wood, wrap in foil and bake for 20-30 minutes at 350.

Using moss & plants from outdoors is more difficult. There is no way to really rid of all parasites & bacteria. I've let moss soak underwater for a couple days, then let it dry out completely for a couple more. I haven't had problems & I'm sure it doesn't get rid of everything but it helps.
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(¯`·.¸¸.·´Kane`·.¸¸.·´¯)

EdK Jun 06, 2004 12:16 PM

I strongly do not recommend baking any type of rocks as even nonporous ones may contain water that has entered through microfine cracks that may not be readily visible. These rocks pose a significant explosion hazard when heated.

Ed

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