Setup Cleaning – Lemon & Vinegar.

1 Comment on Setup Cleaning – Lemon & Vinegar.Husbandry/Care
F10SC
F10SC – The best available disinfectant.

Lemon, Salt & Vinegar…Oh my!

We all know the likes of Lemon juice and White Vinegar have antibacterial properties. It’s something handed down by generations of Grandmothers for good reason.

But please……..Stop using Vinegar. Salt. Lemon Juice. And Jedi mind tricks as your goto setup disinfectant.
These are simply not good enough at disinfecting the setup. They don’t kill anything we as Reptile keepers need it to kill.
Incidentally, they don’t compare to even the most basic store purchased cleaners.
Get yourself a proper Reptile safe cleaner.
There are so many to choose from, with the best being F10SC, which is a Veterinary grade disinfectant, and my personal recommended choice. It’s widely available in the UK, USA, Canada, and Australia.
They don’t even kill the likes of E. coli.
e-coli

Other worthy mentions are Habistat Anti-Bac. Vetark Tamodine-E. ZooMed WipeOut, and Safe4.

Sure, we ALL know the likes of lemon, salt, white vinegar have antibacterial properties, and leave stuff smelling wonderful, but certainly not germ free, which is what we are trying to do – not give your reptile an aromatherapy treatment
They don’t even kill the likes of E. coli, and the Salmonella kill results are negligible, due to contact time and dilution ratios [1].
These are products that were used back in the day, or by people allergic to some ingredients of domestic cleaners.
But much research is available stating the facts about the likes of salt, vinegar and lemon. All of which the ingredients do have antimicrobial, acidic properties, just not in sufficient strength to do anything of note. Thus, leaving a substandard clean surface.
Even a combination of the 3 will not kill the pathogens we are worried about as Reptile keepers.

Contact time:
Even with the likes of F10SC. Its all about contact time.
You spray some decor, or surface and then wipe it instantly, you are not going to kill much at all.

Leave it for 5mins. Then wipe/rinse away. Far far more effective. And more likely to actually kill the nasties, as opposed to wipe away any evidence of them.
So please. Use a proper Reptile safe cleaner.
When I use Vinegar and Lemon Juice:
Water Marks
Water Marks – Ideal job for Lemon & Vinegar

I do use these products, but only on my glass setups, to get those pesky water marks off the glass. For this task they work great due to the acidic properties eating through the stains.

So please. Use a proper Reptile safe cleaner.
Yes, we all love nature, and its health, healing, and natural cleaning properties in everyday food and plants. But honestly, this is not the 1950s.
Any of these plants and foods that actually DO heal and have noticeable benefit, have already become medication. Thanks to science 😀
The rest…..well that’s just used by people whom think aromatherapy actually works 😛
This last part…is just my opinion so don’t freak out 😉
– Pete
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Resources:
Pete Hawkins

Award winning Published author of Herpetoculture.
Featuring articles on many species within,

Practical Reptile Keeping magazine (some linked on site as .pdf files)
Canadian Hobbyist magazine
Reptiles magazine

Also, Reptile/Amphibian blog article writer and reptile specialist for;

Exotic Direct (links on this site)
Reptile Apartment

Public talker at Reptile meetings, for various organisations.

Founder of several huge Reptile and Amphibian related Facebook groups (links on this site)

Reptile Reports - "Lizard Personality of the year" 2016 & 2017

1 Comments

  1. […] ‘home-made’ cleaners such as white vinegar, lemon, etc, please reconsider your methods (check my previous post on the subject). These are pretty useless when it comes to actual sanitation. General cleaning and making the […]

    Reply

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