Extreme Makeover, Cage Edition

[Dragon-Keeper]

This week on Extreme Makeover Cage Edition,

Well, I bought some nice background stuff for his cage, i hope it makes him feel safer!
Theirs a before and after, I hope I dont ahve to tell you which is which.

Any tips on how to really clean the glass?

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[xxxjustinxxx]

nice!! i want a water dragon

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[Dragon-Keeper]

They are a stubborn animal, at least mine is, He finally sits on my shoulder! YAY(but he sits backwards)

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[Dragon-Keeper]

Originally Posted by Shuba

All you need now are the gay guys to prance around your cage lol..

No, I really don't think i do...

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[Shuba]

ok then its not an extreme makeover..its a do it your self

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[Shuba]

Any tips on how to really clean the glass?

glass cleaner on the outside, and i mix it with water for the inside. Not that extreme

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[blkcrochunter]

I use a spray called healthy habitat, it's ,made by the same company that makes Reptile Relief. It is safe nontoxic, and you can use it on the outside and inside of your tank. It also eliminates odors.

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[Dragon-Keeper]

I will look around, I have a coupon for cage furniture cleaner, I dont know if that will do glass...

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[lethargiic]

soap and hot water.... and when you dry it out..instead of using a towel..use newspaper..it works better.

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[Dragon-Keeper]

ok, I didnt think soap was ok.

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[NicoleRussell]

I use novalsan on the inside and windex on the outside.

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[NicoleRussell]

don't use soap for the wd---not a good idea. They lap at the walls and surface furniture in the cage sometimes.

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[Dbutton]

The best glass cleaner is white vinigar and water. Get a 1qt. spray bottle and put 1 cup of the vinigar and the rest water and it will clean your glass as good a windex. And it won't hurt your animals at all either.

David

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[schmelkdog]

I'm going with dbutton on that one. Melissa Kaplan has a great page on cleaning/disenfecting. It won't work on real heavy mineral deposits but as far as cleaning the glass as well as making it look great that's the way I go.
We use the novalsan also on a regular basis to clean up the gunk.

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[WingedWolf]

Soap and water are fine, so long as you rinse it well afterward. You have to rinse very well when you disinfect, too--residues from disinfectants are far more dangerous than soap. You use soap to wash YOUR dishes.

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[Dbutton]

Yes we do use soap to wash our dishes, but have you ever got any of that soap in your mouth or eyes. Snakes and lizards have a bad habbit of rubbing their faces up against the glass and if there were any residue it could cause severe problems since their eyes don't work like ours. The soap could dry up their mucous membrane over their eye and cause blindness or at the least a severe infection. I personally have been using scalding hot water in a spray bottle to clean my cages lately and that is working great. I am probably going to get one of those small steam cleaners soon and then I will not have to worry about an bacteria at all and will not have burned fingers from holding that hot sprayer any more. All my cages are plastic, Visions and rubbermaid tubs in the rack, except for one big burm cage and that one I am about to put two heavy coats of poly urathane in to make cleaning alot easier.

David

[WingedWolf]

Rinsing the cage well prevents more than the most miniscule amount of residue from being left--less than would be on your drinking cups and dinner plates. Not enough to cause irritation. I personally am skeptical of the cleaning power of products that claim to be useable "even while the animal is in the cage"...or to be non-toxic. Non-toxic doesn't mean non-irritating, and we know the sort of track record the companies that make these products have.
A steam sprayer sounds like a very neat idea for cleaning, too--does it really sterilize?

I'm more concerned about possible residue from bleach solution used to sterilize than about soap residue, as I said--but sterilizing has to be done.

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