Hey,
This afternoon I went to give fresh water to pandora and mold was on her tree . Its a habba tree made of some kind of wood. and her humidity was a contist 92 - 94% which is possibly the reason why . I know its gotta be that. how can I prevent this when I need high humd. for her? im trying to drop it down to mid 80's. but I took the tree out and she's in shed so I can't clean her cage.? trash the tree or what can I do.?

Brandon.

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brazilian rainbow boa--- Pandora
Cali King---Oreo

Life is to short to worry about your mistake's as long as you learn from them.

I get mold in my Brazilian Rainbow Boa cages if I don't clean them out enough, but its always around the moss, I wouldn't bother with the tree unless you are okay with cleaning it quite often. If there is mold in any other parts of the cage you NEED to clean it out, shedding or not.

EDIT - I should check dates before replying I guess, oh well. Hows it going?

pretty good got rid of the tree yeah its kind of old thread buts its ok. thanks though for the reply amber.

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brazilian rainbow boa--- Pandora
Cali King---Oreo

Life is to short to worry about your mistake's as long as you learn from them.

i get fuzzy cottony looking mold on the moss and plants in my dart frog viv all the time. It's a good thing for your microhabitat to have these sort of fungus/mold "uproars". Dont ask me exactly why...thats a question for cody.

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-Adam

"Help Protect our Planet from Overcollection, Purchase Aquacultured Livestock and Captive Bred Herps"

Regardless of the date this is an important thread.. Adam, while some fungus can be beneficial (every animal has bacteria inside them) there is a difference between good bacteria and bad bacteria.

Mold is not something you want growing in your cage. We've had this problem, and it is a common problem in enclosures of high humidity. However, I wanted to raise a couple of points; firstly, what humidity are you keeping your Brazilian Rainbow Boa at now? 90% is too high - such high humidity can cause respiratory infections. An ideal humidity level for adult BRBs is 50-70%, while younger boas can suit higher humidity. This can be raised when the snake is in shed, but shouldn't be going so high if you can help it.

Also, as you obviously realised, live apparatus creates more of a breeding ground for mold and fungus. There are other options, which are usually better for higher humidity requiring species, we use branches in some of our enclosures called flexi-branch, which are very realistic looking but are made out of materials which do not erode or mold.

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

great info rachael. I would also like to add that I was aware that all animals have bacteria in their gut (as an iguana owner this is a very important thing to know), and that there is a difference in good (ex: L. acidophilus) and bad (ex: salmonella) bacteria. lol ya'll know me...i cant admit that I dont know something. I guess it's just the stubborn country boy in me.

However, i was not aware that having fungus in the cage could be a bad thing. I had always been scared to death of that cotton-like mold/fungus in my cage before cody told me it was beneficial and actually part of a cycle that each natural viv goes through if set up properly. Thanks for clearing that up for me

disturbed, sorry if I mislead you...no matter how much I try to deny it I am still a newbie.

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-Adam

"Help Protect our Planet from Overcollection, Purchase Aquacultured Livestock and Captive Bred Herps"

Adam, apologies, I don't know for certain that mold is bad for all species, I just know that if it's growing in this person's BRBs cage then s/he doesn't want it in there. Maybe it can be beneficial to your frogs, Cody would know more about that as you said.

However, another point to make here is that whenever we've noticed mold there are usually two conditions; humidity is very high and the mold is growing on something, ie. faeces.. again, don't get me wrong, excrement only stays in our reptiles' enclosures for as long as it takes us to spot it, i.e. right away, but for something like a young frog the faeces is small and difficult to spot clean, but upon close inspection if there has been mold it has grown off something such as the faeces or a dead cricket. This in itself is not good to have in an enclosure.

Please check with Cody about your frogs Adam, I wouldn't like to say I'm right in an area where I'm not so knowledgable, but in this instance I was advising that mold should be removed and prevented.

One more thing to note is that if you create more ventilation then this will also work towards preventing mold.

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

yes ventilation is good, and I have to agree that too much humidity in an animal's cage is not a good thing. Fortunatly dart frogs need high humidity and very little if any ventilation. Most other herps however, if kept in too high of humidity for too long will start to develope skin conditions or respiratory problems.

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-Adam

"Help Protect our Planet from Overcollection, Purchase Aquacultured Livestock and Captive Bred Herps"

Hey my humidity level is 83.4% and it was a habba tree that had green mold on the tips of the branches but I got rid of the tree and so I got the problem solved and then I got a hide box a rock (store bought) and a water dish. I'll have to look into getting some of those branch things you said. but thanks for the information and i honestly dont know if mold is good for a Brazilian Rainbow Boa or not but let me know if you find out thanks alot.

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brazilian rainbow boa--- Pandora
Cali King---Oreo

Life is to short to worry about your mistake's as long as you learn from them.