# Sterilizing a Great STuff cage



## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

This is devastating, but I think I may have to do it. My mantella betsileo, while doing fine (calling all the time) refuse to use the rest of their more arboreal style cage. They only utilize a territory in the back, and virtualyl never climb, and never use the front. I can tell they like the Ivy along the coco panel because of the "bower effect" as Penny is about ready to lay her eggs....hopefully!  

Like every hobbyist has noticed, lots of information about some frogs is quite general and pretty inaccurate, such as my tinctorius, Kole, is ALWAYS climbing and trying to get out of his 20 gallon high tank.

What sucks is the fact I JUST remodeled my tinc's cage, and I plan to leave him in there for a few months just not to stress him out.

I'm gonna have to move my mantellas into a longer style tnak in the basement where they'll experience cooler temps during the winter to get them to breed.

So, the question is, how does one sterilize this beautiful cage? I have Great Stuff and silicone for background, and cork, but the cork isn't attahed to the wall. I don't want to add soapy water to the Great Stuff as the peat will absorb it and I'd have to scrub it off.

My mantelllas were diagnosised with nemetodes from a stool sample long ago, but I use panacur. No protozoans detected, everybody is healthy and are nearly fully grown. 

What I want to know, even though I got panacur and there are no protozoans, I wonder about things such as viruses that might be harmful to a New World frog but not to an Old World style animal. Should I really be that concerned? All animals are very healthy.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

If I remove all the soil, all of the plants, what about using a black light, aka, some form of ultraviolet radiation inside the tank after everything else is removed? I can't drag it out into the sunlight, as its too large and I don't want to redo the tricolor's side of the double tank.


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## Guest (Oct 18, 2004)

Sterlizing the vivarium when putting different frogs in it is a "really good" idea, but not absolutely necessary. If you "mysterioulsy" lost frogs in a vivarium you would be *insane* not to sterlize it before putting new frogs in. However if the previous inhabitants were/are healthy, its more of a judgement call, a risk still none the less. You never know what parasite might live happily in one frog that could kill the other so be carefull. Since your talking about mantellas vs darts I might even be more inclined to err on the side of caution. You could always try introducing one of the frogs to the vivarium for a couple of weeks and see how it does.

-Tad


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## Guest (Oct 18, 2004)

Has anyone ever used or tried a Grapefruit seed Extract solution sprayed on the background to try to sterilize it. I use it on the bare glass terrariums before I set them up and also use it to clean out my rat cages. It's known for it's antibacterial/antimicrobial/antivirial qualities and being non-toxic. I've never tried it on the backgrounds. Wonder if you could spray it down good enough with it and let it dry if it would kill enough buggies to do some good.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Is grapefruit extract too acidic to where it would damage the Great Stuff background? And, if it gets into the peat mix on the wall, could that be too acidic once the frogs move in? 

What I could do is after I clean the cage the best I can, move my tricolor froglets into that side of the tank instead of my subadult male tinc, Kole.

Younger animals are hardier and adapt better than older animals, and would probably develop an immunity far better. 

I have mixed plants from my firebellied toad cages with my tinctorius cages (before I even realized there were consequences) with no problem. And I know where my firebellies came from they were mixed with all types of frogs, both wild caught leoaprd frogs and treefrogs.

Still, how effective is UV sterilization? Everybody talks about that sunlight will finish the job after the soil and stuff is removed. But obviously, my only option is a black light.


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