How to clean a snake’s tank
Keeping your snakes enclosure clean is a small yet potent step in keeping it healthy. While this should be common sense I’ve met my fair share of people who simply never do anything to clean their snakes cage aside from change the newspaper or substrate. Strangely enough they aren’t bothered by the peculiar odor coming from the tank or tub. Even more strange is the fact that they can’t seem to figure out why their snake is “always acting weird” Granted there are a multitude of reasons a snake can “act weird”, but living in your own toxic waste doesn’t help matters.
Aside from smell and general health of the snake there’s the simple moral fact that you shouldn’t be allowing any creature to live in foul conditions. Granted snakes can be found in some pretty interesting natural habitats, but that is no excuse for you practicing poor hygiene.
- The types of cleaning
- There are three types of tank cleaning that you should do. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages. Which method is used depends on the situation. We’ll take a quick look at each method now and then we’ll take a look at cleaning agents you should consider using.
- Spot cleaning
- This method is just like the name sounds. Instead of cleaning everything you will only clean areas that clearly need it. For example your snake leaves you a pile in a corner of the tank, and that is all you clean. The corner. This isn’t meant to keep conditions sanitary, only tolerable until you can do a wipe down or through cleaning. Do this as necessary
- Wipe down cleaning
- Using this method of tank cleaning you will be wiping the sides down, removing any feces you missed during the spot cleans, replacing soiled substrate with fresh. This method just uses a soft cloth with warm water on it and no soap or other cleaning agents. It is a level up from a spot clean as you are getting the entire enclosure, but by no means is it a through cleaning. You should practice doing this at least once a week.
- Through cleaning
- In this case everything comes out of the snakes tank and gets washed. Hides and water bowls and scrubbed down using a cleaning agent designed for the job and towel or air dried. All substrate regardless of conditions is completely changed. The enclosure is inspected for damage, accessories (heating elements, thermometers, etc) are all checked over for problems. Inside and outside of the snake’s tube is cleaned with appropriate agents (see below for more information).
This method of cleaning takes some time and effort and will require the snake to be out of the enclosure for a decent amount of time. You’ll need to prepare a secondary temporary housing solution for this. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. A simple plastic tub with a layer of newspaper will work just fine. Make sure it isn’t air tight (poke a few holes in the lid if need be), and keep it out of drafts or cool/cold areas. It is also a good idea to have an under the tank heater attached to this enclosure just to be on the safe side. Just remember you’ll need to start heating it up about an hour before you put the snake into it.
The spot and wipe-down cleaning methods will take anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes (on average) while the through cleaning will take around 15 to 20 minutes. Hardly any time at all when you compare it against the cost of your snakes, and possible vet bills due to unstanitary conditions.
- Cleaning agents
- Snakes are very sensitive chemicals so you need to be picky when you choose what you’re going to use to clean their tanks. Just as important as being picky, if not moreso, you need to be certain to rinse everything very well! Plastics for instance will actually retain a large amount of chemical agents due to their porous nature. Snakes don’t mix well with chemicals, especially if they’re forced to live with them.
- Diluted bleach and soap solution
- This is perhaps the simplest, cheapest, and most popular cleaning agent. It is also potentially deadly so use it at your own risk. You take a 1 ounce of bleach, and combine it with teaspoon of dish soap in a quart of water. Before you go any further do not combine dish soap that contains ammonia with bleach! It can and likely will cause a potentially deadly ammonia gas to form. Deadly to you as well as any other living thing in the house. Read the label of your dish soap very carefully before mixing it with bleach.
If you can’t find a dish soap without ammonia then you can still wash using this method you just need to wash it with the dishsoap first. Throughly rinse it and then let it soak in a bleach and water (ratio 1:32) solution for about 10-15 minutes. After this take the item out and rinse it very well. Obviously this method of dipping and soaking may or may not be reasonable depending on how large and how many items you have to clean. If it just won’t work for you then read on!
- Chlorhexidine
- This agent is best known as a major ingredient in dental mouthwash. It is designed to kill and combat dental plaque and bacteria. Strangely enough it also makes a great cleaning agent for a snake’s tank (or any other animals enclosure, dishes, etc). This doesn’t mean that you should get out your bottle of mouthwash and use it to clean your tanks. That would be a bad idea. Spend a few dollars and buy a ready made chlorhexidine solution such as Oronine or Avagard. You can read more information about Chlorhexidine here.
Ammonia and bleach
ChlorhexidineThere are certainly other cleaning agents out there, but for the task at hand either one of these will work. While the bleach, soap and water concoction is useful it is potentially volatile. That’s why I recommend using a chlorhexidine based agent. Sure it costs a little more, but it is much safer and a little bit can go a long ways.