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Cleaning the water bowl- your thoughts on this?

H

h0mersimps0n

New member
I've recently started to use a quick splash of Listerine while cleaning my water bowls.

By far, Alcohol products kill bacteria the best and I was thinking that a quick rinse of the water bowl couldn't hurt.

Please note, I rince the bowls EXTREMELY carefully and well after the splash of Listerine.

In the past I'd usually use hand soap (non-antibacterial).

Some questions:

1.) has anyone ever gone to this length to keep their bowls clean?

2.) has anyone ever had their snakes get sick from unclean water bowls (i.e. you cleaned the bowl once a week but still had problems cause you didn't do anything except change the h20)

3.) To my fellow biologists, what are your thoughts on antibiotic resistance? Am I inviting tougher strains to show up over time?


Thanks
 
I haven't had issues myself but I use disposible water dishes. They sell them at local dollar stores. They are just plant bottom plates....4 for a buck. I just toss out the old plate and replace. Since its only 25 cents, I normally replace the dishes around once a week or so.

bmm
 
yeah I never go more than a week without cleaning the dishes either.

I'm shocked you dispose of the dishes like that. I'm no environmentalist or anything but holy cow that seems like a waste.

From time to time I guess I could dishwash them but I'm not sure if all of them are dishwasher safe (especially the real rock dishes).

I'm also one of those guys that doesn't believe in giving snakes filtered water or anything insanely crazy like that. In the wild snakes are exposed to tons of more toxic stuff in streams and whatever than come from my tap. Now if people remove the floride or other things from their water that might be a different story (unnatural additives).

Reptile physiology is great, we need a vet around here, I'm curious what they teach them about reptiles.
 
Well the plastics are recycle materials so I toss them into the recycle bin LOL. But I know what you mean. haha

bmm
 
I disinfect mine at least once a week as well...more often for the little ones who like to use their bowls as a toilet. I personally use Chlorhexidine to disinfect my water bowls. I make up a big soak pail and put the bowls in to soak for about 15 minutes. I really like using Chlorhexidine because it's very effective, and it is safer to use than bleach.
 
Could you guys plz tell me if I need to do somethin else cause all I do is just rinse out the bowls and put new water in. I have one ball python I've had for almost 4 yrs and a baby creamsicle for a few months and I've never had any problems. But if I should do something else too just in case plz tell me!

Adam
 
generally i just rinse them out too, but occasionally i do steralise all the snakes "belongings" in a very weak bleach solution, followed by a thorough rinse.
 
I use dishwasher safe water bowls for all of my snakes. For the adults and yearlings, they get enameled ceramic cat food bowls, those are available at Petsmart for .99 or so. And for the hatchlings and smaller snakes I use the condiment bowls available at Walmart. They're a heavy duty plastic bowl that holds 2-4 oz of water.

My dishwasher comes with a Sani-Rinse feature that super heats the water up to 180F to kill bacteria and most other living organisms. I guess this function is made for baby bottles and other "mommy items". So I make a separate load for all of my snake items that are dishwasher safe and use the sani-rinse. So far, its worked great and I haven't had a problem with sick snakes or anything.

I only have one snake who insists on using his bowl as a functional toilet, so in his case his gets cleaned out after each incident. The others I would say closer to every 2 weeks they get thoroughly cleaned in the dishwasher. The biggest problem I have is hard water deposits on the bowls that are a pain to clean out. I always feel that the porous nature of the deposits allow for colonization of organisms in the water more so than the smoothness of the enamel.

But so far I haven't had any problems with running them through the dishwasher. =)

As for antibiotic resistance to alcohol, I doubt that this will happen any time soon. It's one of those things that are so strong it kills quickly without any chance for adaption to take place, unlike triclosan or other antibacterial agents. Which is one reason why doctors recommend using alcohol based hand sanitizers instead of other chemically derived antibacterial agents.

I too shy away from antibacterial things in my home, with exception to bleach or Dial soap in the shower (I feel cleaner than with other soaps). I feel our society has taken the whole antibacterial thing to extremes. Bacteria and viruses made us what we are today. With the advent of the "Clean Revolution" we have increasing asthma, allergies, and other immune disorders with our children. Our kids are not adapted to the things we were/are and they pose more of a risk if they ever do encounter them.

Alcohol and heat are the two best killers of bacteria if used wisely. So I think you're ok with using Listerine while cleaning. Word of the wise, use the Wal-mart generic brand. It's cheaper and has more alcohol. ;)
 
All of my small animals are kept in tuperware-type containers, and I use plastic drinking cups cut down to size for their water dishes. I cut them so that the tops of the water bowls fit snugly against the top of the container along with a small cutout opening for access.

This keeps the water from being spilled, and, at pennies a piece, they're completely disposable. Because they are clear plastic, they're readily recyclable too.

My larger animals have those diswasher-safe heavyweight plastic bowls from the pet store. They seem to do fine too, with a little cleaning in alcohol.
 
Useful or useless trivia......

As for antibiotic resistance to alcohol, I doubt that this will happen any time soon. It's one of those things that are so strong it kills quickly without any chance for adaption to take place, unlike triclosan or other antibacterial agents. Which is one reason why doctors recommend using alcohol based hand sanitizers instead of other chemically derived antibacterial agents.
Click to expand...

FWIW, Crypto can actually survive many methods of sanitation, including alcohol, freezing, ammonia, and iodine/iodophor. Moist heat is one of the only successful, documented treatments for this devastating little organism.
 
Hi . I been washing mine with dish soap every other day when I refill them , the water is very hot in my sink and I rinse the heck out of them . Does not seem to be a problem . Ya all think thats ok ?
 
regular hand soap (antibact or not) is really all you need IMO. I really only use Listerine to clean my Green Tree's bowl cause he's a little harder to replace financially if things go awry.

You're fine and doing the right thing.
 
My two cents (Oh, Hi CAV!)

I use dishwasher safe bowls. I soak them in a STRONG bleach solution and near boiling water once a month, then soak them in a vinegar solution. Besides that, they get emptied, wiped out with a paper towel, rinsed and replaced. I used to put them in the dishwasher once weekly, but my better half is doing well to put up with a sink full of thawing mice and rats every weekend! :cry:

I don't have a lot of animals coming and going (well, a fair amount going, but they came from here) so I'm not overly worried about Crypto, but I try to stay on my toes and keep clean conditions.
 
also.....

could you tell me how I should clean my actual cages correctly? All I've really done before is hosed them down. I have a feeling I should be doing more but I don't know what or how. Could you plz tell me?

Adam
 
The anti-bacterial soaps are worthless. I read in a reliable magazine that in order to be bacteria free, you'd have to scrub your hands for 2 entire minutes. Not to mention that not only do they kill the harmful bacteria, but also the good bacteria..So..we don't use them..and it says that the quick anti-bacterial gel..that you squirt on your hands and just rub...is even worse! <shrug>
 
Last year, as first year medical students, they made us do a microbiology lab where we tested the efficacy of regular (non-antibacterial) hand soap vs. antibacterial handsoap vs no hand soap (just run hands under water) vs. no wash hands. We had people wash their hands then swabs were taken, plated and grown. We counted an equal amount of bacteria in both the non-antibiotic AND antibiotic soaps, MORE bacteria grew on plates that had water run over them without soap than the control people who didn't do anything (so running hands under water without soap made things worse).

I'd like you all to take a second and thank the germ freaks of this world for what we now call "super infections". These infections happen when we overtreat or overuse antibiotic therapy. The bodies natural flora (bacteria) actually use skin oils and environmental crud for food. When we overuse or overtreat with antibiotics we kill the "good" natural flora bacteria meaning that more "food" (crud) is available for the bad BAD bacteria (which are anti-biotic resistant in many cases anyway), the bad bacteria move in because of the abundence of environmental crud (food) and boom- super infection.

Regular Soap and water- class dismissed...

P.S. I don't remember for sure but I think we did test the gel hand soaps and they did the best of all, don't quote me on that though, I barely remember that one...
 
This is interesting. I have been washing out my water dishes with hand soap (probably antibacterial....whatever I can find) every time I replace the water, and then wash them in the dishwasher whenever I do a complete clean of their cages. With my adult snake, I soak his stuff in bleach water when I completely clean his cage. Shall I just keep with that, or do any of the (very expensive) reptile-specific sanitizers work? I was told bleach water did the same as those, but I haven't compared....
 
Sure, it kills a lot of things, but I only do the bleach thing every once in a while, and some of the reptile disinfectants make it easier to do it more often (no soaking, etc). I was hoping someone out there had some sort of comparison for the two methods.
 
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