# Tank Decorations



## emmyred18 (9 mo ago)

A curiosity question more than anything because someone asked me when I was talking about setting up a tank soon. I had intended to BUY stuff for it for decoration, but someone asked me if you can just use things you found outside (i.e. natural rocks, seashells, twigs/branches, driftwood, magnolia leaves, so on) in a snake enclosure? And how would you go about disinfecting such things if you did use them?


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

emmyred18 said:


> A curiosity question more than anything because someone asked me when I was talking about setting up a tank soon. I had intended to BUY stuff for it for decoration, but someone asked me if you can just use things you found outside (i.e. natural rocks, seashells, twigs/branches, driftwood, magnolia leaves, so on) in a snake enclosure? And how would you go about disinfecting such things if you did use them?


No reason why you can't use branches, rocks etc from nature rather than buying stuff from a retailer. Most branches are fine, but avoid anything that is pine or related to pine trees as the sap can be an irritant. As for cleaning, just rinse off the loose stuff, and then leave to dry. If you really want to be sure then baking the sand or small branches on a low heat for an hour should kill off anything unwanted. Or use F10 veterinary disinfectant and either soak the item or spray it using a chap atomiser


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## Elly66 (Feb 27, 2021)

I've recently been setting up a new vivarium and have collected branches from my garden. All were rubbed down and sharper edge's smoothed off. I then scrubbed them with a virkon s solution, then rinsed and allowed to dry. Rocks, slabs etc, I just soak in virkon solution for a few hours, then rinse and allow to dry. 

Don't risk baking rocks, some can explode.


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