Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Living near a decent stream and lake drift wood is easy to find.

But not wanting to bring any little beasties or harmful anything to my pets I have done the following with sucess.

For branches to large for the oven...
First I wash the branches down with a bleech solution and let sun dry outside until most or all the bleech smell is gone.

Then I put several coats of poly over them this seals in and eventually kills anything that might have still been in the wood .Plus makes the branches much easier to clean waste material from .Ive done this for years without ill effect on anything so far.It is important to note do not use the branches until the poly cures and you can no longer smell the poly.

just haven't tried it. i was going to use like a clear coat shellac or something, let it set and see if it still smelled or what it did when it got wet.
just never had the time to mess around with it.
there's so much stuff around here when something just gets too many poop stains on it i just get more and nuke it in the microwave or bleach it.
this bark for this enclosure turned almost completely greyish brown after 8 minutes ( 2 minute rounds) in the microwave. i sprayed it down and less than a minute later it looked like this! can you spot the two geckos?

I only see one, I think...
I get lots of branches from our property (10 acres of woods) and I've been scrubbing them down w/bleach, rinsing very well, and letting sun-dry for days. I can actually keep moss and lichens living on them with this method with no ill effects on the cresteds so far. I've been using this method for 2 years.
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Terri
4:8:5 crested geckos: Popcorn, Goldfish, Harley, Bear, Big Red, Olive, Smudge, Blackie, Belle, Brilliant, Tina, Brick, Tony, Kermit, WildFire, WildSpatter-Spots-to-Spare & Randi(y)

there's one sprawled out on the left half towards the top, then almost directly across there's one dangling from it's back legs and you can only see it's belly.

the moss and lichen seem to come alive when you spray them down, they dull down quite a bit during the day and each night and morning when i spray the cage down they brighten up a ton!