Enclosure hygiene is extremely important - the health of your animal depends on it!

A word of warning
Most cleaning of the enclosure involves the use of some liquid to clean surfaces. If you have lights/bulbs in the enclosure, make sure you turn them off and give them time to cool down before allowing water near them, as water on a hot bulb can cause the glass to shatter.

Regular Cleaning
The enclosure should be regularly cleaned. Faecal deposits and skin sloughs should be removed as soon as they appear. The substrate should be regularly removed and replaced/washed, and all sides (top, bottom, front back and walls) of the enclosure should be washed with a mild detergent and/or bleach solution. The enclosure should be well rinsed and dried before the animal/s are returned.

Water changing/cleaning
The water bowl should be emptied and cleaned every three to five days, or sooner if it becomes dirty. Some animals will defecate/urinate in the water bowl, and the water should obviously be changed as soon as this occurs. When you empty the water, check for mites on the bottom of the bowl - often this is the first place you will see them if your animal is infested, as it tries to get rid of them by soaking. The water bowl should be cleaned like you'd clean one of your own drinking cups - with a small amount of detergent, and then rinsed thoroughly. Some keepers prefer to use filtered water (using a drinking water filter such as Brita or Willow), while others use straight tap water. Tap water can be lethal for frogs, due to the chlorine content, so should be left to stand in an open bucket for three or four days to let the chlorine dissipate before use, or filtered carefully. Unfiltered tap water doesn't appear to harm most snakes, pythons or turtles.
If you just top up the water in your animals' bowls as it evaporates, you might end up with water that contains a lot of dissolved salts and minerals. You can see evidence of this if you constantly let your water bowls evaporate completely - a white, crystalline coating will be left over the surface of the bowl. This coating can be quite hard to get off, so it's much better just to change your water bowls regularly

Substrate washing
If you are using a washable substrate such as gravel, sand or leaves/bark, the substrate should be removed regularly, washed, dried and replaced. Washing is best done in hot water, with a small amount of bleach in the first wash to kill any organisms. The substrate should be washed until the water coming off is clear, and no smell remains. To dry the substrate, place it in shallow trays in the sun, or in the oven if you wish to dry/disinfect further. Make sure you keep a close eye on any flamable substrates you put in the oven, and keep the heat down low.

Rocks and Branches
Rocks and branches should be thoroughly disinfected before adding them to the enclosure, and then cleaned regularly while they're in use. Branches and rocks should be soaked in hot water and bleach for a number of days before use, to ensure that any organisms in/on the item are killed. After two or three days, the items should be rinsed by soaking in hot water (nothing added) for a further two or three days, changing the water every 12 hours. This should be done until no chlorine (bleach) smell remains. The items then need to be dried thoroughly in the sun or an oven if they fit, before being added to the enclosure. As part of the regular cleaning process, the branches and rocks should be removed, scrubbed with a detergent/bleach mixture, rinsed and dried.

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