My wife came up with this idea while we were doing a fecal test on our beardie Draper.
While we were looking at the coccidia under the microscope, the slide got to be about 30 minutes old and all of the coccidia eggs were gone. We learned from beautifuldragons.com that the fecal float solution is mainly sodium, which sucks all of the moisture out of the eggs and makes them implode!
Would a super saturated salt water solution kill coccida oocysts? I know some people make their own fecal float solution using epsom salts....wonder if that would work.
We've been cleaning our viv using ammonia....but breathing that stuff is not good for your or the dragon.
I don't think it would work unfortunately. My teacher says it is rather difficult to kill protozoes, especially when they have spores. When we get to the protozoa section in class I will understand better. I think salt solution certainly couldn't hurt though for killing some other microbes.
I don't think it would work unfortunately. My teacher says it is rather difficult to kill protozoes, especially when they have spores. When we get to the protozoa section in class I will understand better. I think salt solution certainly couldn't hurt though for killing some other microbes.
Interesting. Let me know what you learn about the protz!
I guess I'm talking more about the spores...the oocysts. We actually saw the before and after from them being in the solution. You could see the 'shell' (for lack of a more knowledgeable term) that had collapsed, but the oocyst was destroyed. In fact only a few small pieces of plant matter remained after about 40 minutes.
I use the "Professional Concentrated Disinfectant" From the BD.Co This is from their site:
'Remember, bleach and chlorhexidine solutions do not kill coccidia! Professional Concentrated Disinfectant is an effective, no rinse germicidal detergent used in labs, hospitals, veterinary clinics, farms, grooming shops and breeding facilities.'
I assume it works on all stages of coccidia.
Ammonia is very though.
*Edit*
You already knew about the cleaner from the BD.Co
If the shells shriveled up then they were most likely dead =) I shall def. be back with more info once we learn about the protos in class. I will also ask lots of questions and see. My guess is that the salt dehydrated the eggs because water likes to go from hypo to hypertonic solutions (I hope I remember that right). So all the water rushed out of the eggs. That is why honey can't go bad. Nothing is able to grow on it. Too bad honey is so sticky =(