Cleaning Water Bowls

[MrBredli]

Howdy Folks,

Just wandering if everyone thinks it is acceptable practice to soak multiple water bowls together once a week in either a bleach or F10 solution. As long as extreme care is taken when removing water bowls from the cages, would there be any risk of cross contamination ? I currently wash all water dishes individually but it's getting to the stage now where it is just too time consuming. I'm thinking of soaking them all together once per week or just buying disposable take away type dishes. Any thoughts?

Brendon

[Hetty]

That F10 stuff is pretty strong, I don't think anything can survive in it.

Maybe if you have some snakes quarentined, wash those ones seperately, just to be safe.

[moose]

I wash all my Water Bowls together in Bleach and then Air dry them seperately, but still taken caution returning the right bowl to the right enclosure, although it probably doesnt matter anyway, although i have a couple of pythons that get cranky when you change there bowls over...

[snakes4me2]

i would agree with thenothing. Not that im experienced in that area but maybe soak them in it twice just to be sure. I dont think anythingcould survive two goes in F10

[TrueBlue]

i still do mine with F10 then rinse well, all seperately and ive got lots of em, it just feels safer that way.

[Australis]

I have a load of the same ceramic water bowls, when cleaning i soak them all in a bucket with
F10 for atleast a day or two.... while these are soaking, i replace with a previously soaked and air dry bowl

Keeping them seperate would be better i imagine

[MrBredli]

But wouldn't soaking them altogether, and scrubbing each one whilst submerged reduce the risk of cross contamination via your hands? As your hands would be completely soaked in the solution, whereas if you were doing them individually there might be a greater risk of your hands not being completely sanitized? But i suppose it is the same risk as when you are cleaning one cage after the other. I guess it's a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other..

[TrueBlue]

i used to use disposable gloves bettween cages, but these days i spray my hands with F10 and rinse well after each cage.

[snakeitup]

do you use the f10 veterinary disinfectant?the stuff animal attraction sells?

[Magpie]

Just buy disposables

[adbacus]

Correct me if I am wrong, cos I used this on another thread and I know that it's aimed at birds, but F10 doesn't work against mycobacteria, which is a primary pathogenic organism of Respiratory Infections and Pneumonia.

I have not seen any new reports on the carcinogenic study on F10 at all even though it was meant to be reviewed last year. I know that Viraclean is supposed to be carcinogenic after longn term continuous use, and F10 was developed from this. By this table, Virkon is the best possible disinfectant.

http://www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/t...infectants.pdf

For cost effectiveness, and cos i don't have hardly any at this point in time, I still use warm hypochlorite solution (Milton's solution), washed and air dried off, just like baby bottles. Followed by direct sunlight. JMO though.

Will eventually move to either Virkon or F10 as I get more

[slim6y]

Well why not 'permanent' marker the bowls... Or colour co-ordinate the bowls??? If you're a 'better safe than sorry' fellow then wouldn't it be better to be safe than sorry?

You will find on certain surfaces bacteria, viruses, fungi, and infact any microscopic pathogen can adhere to them and find all sorts of nooks and crannys to invade waiting for conditions to become right. Other than exposing all nooks and crannys to temperatures in excess of 90'C for 10 minutes then you're unlikely to be able to remove 100% of everything.

Even surgical bacterial removers on the hands, still leave suprising amounts of bacteria.

Direct sunlight is unable to penetrate all of your nooks and crannys either... At a microscopic level you will be suprised at what can hold on through what you would think is thorough disenfection.

But of course on saying this, there's no need to be alarmed or even obsessive compulsive about it... In most cases your pets will recieve sub-infectious levels of the pathogens and will infact form antibodies... But on the rare occassions I guess contamination could occur...

This has been a Slim6y opinion

I think go with the permanent marker thing!

PS - I may on;y have one snake... but her water bowl is merely rinsed under hot water every couple of days... yes, go ahead and gasp... but rinsed I tell you... I find the disenfecting process to be to invasive and nasty residues will probably cause more damage than a small, but consistent amount of bacteria!