Some new garters

[Thamnophis]

The crypto-source most probably did not come from the water. The water in Switzerland is clean, I presume.
But when you daily or once every two days change the water in the waterbowl, the infectious parasites etc. have less chance to multiply.
In a system where the water goes round and round via a waterfall, the water mostly does not get changed that much. Often it is filtered.
But such a thing like the crypto cannot be filtered out, I think.
And in this way is the chance there is an outbreak much bigger.

But a big part of Bad Luck is also needed for such unlucky events.

[Cazador]

The problem is that cryptosporidium is a protist (a protozoan), not a bacterium. Thus, it had to be transported into the terrarium. It couldn't have dispersed through the air. If the water is clean, then we can rule out contamination by local fish. This suggests that a healthy-looking snake must have introduced it into the water, where it multiplied like crazy. Even a month's quaranteen probably wouldn't have identified the infested snake or allowed this tragedy to be prevented. What an unlucky break!

[boeh]

@Rick
This is a very interessting thing with the UV-light. I didn't know about those destroying mechanism. As you know I still have a sirtalis x flame cross that's infected with cryptos. The infection isn't really strong, but there is one. It would be propably good if I would install an UV-light and let it shine for some minutes per day. Maybe this would kill the cysts which are defecated by the snake. That would probably avoid the self infect (this is a big problem by this disease).

I don't think that they come from the local drinking system. I think they were "produced" in the watersystem. I cleaned the system out every week (waterchange and some cleaning). My opinion is that the faeces which the snake probably made in the waterpool were pumped through the system and let some residues in the pump system. There (in the pump and the tubes) they couldn't realy get cleaned and had the chance to multiply and infect the snake. Is this possible, or can't protists be developed by contaminated water?

I never had some fish in the pool and didn't get the water out of a stream. This we can except.

@Fons
Yes, they can't be filtered out. They cysts (in german: Oozysten, but I don't know the right english word for it) are only 5 micrometer small.

@CrazyHedgehog
Maybe I misunderstood something, please correct if that wasn't youre question. Yes, I had to kill them, because their condition was getting worser. I didn't do that by myself, a vet doctor did that for me. The fight against those cryptos is very hard. If you have them, such cleaning mechanism wouldn't be enough. I cleaned out the boxes of the sick snakes every 2 / 3 days with "eau de Javel" (do you say that like this? eau de javel is a bleeching solution). But if you don't have them, this is a good thing! The most important thing is to clean out the whaterbowl periodical. I do that once a time in 2 days. If they made faeces in the whaterbowl, I clean it out with some alcohol.

A good solution against cryptos is heat and cold. Some time under 0 ° Celsius will kill them. Therefore I probably will send my last infected snake in the hibernation and cool down the temperature once a week down to 0 ° Celcius for ONLY 2 hours. Probably this will help either. But I'm not sure yet if I really will do that. The material can be cleaned with heat. As far as I know the cysts will be killed by a heat of about 100 ° Celsius.

And yes, i was very very sad about this thing

[Stefan-A]

I'm fairly certain that cold will NOT kill crypto. I wouldn't take any risks, when every source says it's not curable.

[boeh]

This is interessting. I read that once or two times in some articles. Probably I'll find them again. Do you have some articles about this topic?

Thanx,
Cyrill

[Stefan-A]

None bookmarked. A quick search gave the result that cold (-20 for several hours) does indeed kill most, but not all of the parasites.

[Cazador]

I'm still looking for more information on the UV systems, but they don't appear to be cheap. They're not just the standard UV bulb that you buy for a few dollars. These use specific light wavelengths to kill pathogens (bacteria and protozoa). I need to make a phone call to see if the UV bulb in the link, below, includes the wand (similar to a flashlight). There are other sources, so I might be able to find a viable alternative. I'll keep you posted.
Rick

VWR.COM - Product Page

[Cazador]

Here are three better links for UV treatment systems. They're much less expensive alternatives. In the mean time, I'd suggest cleaning the the last infected snake's cage once every week or two with a fairly strong (25%) bleach solution. Better to go a little overboard in this case.

Vecton UV Sterilizers by T.M.C., 8W, 3 gpm flow rate

ProClear Pond Clarifier

U.V. Sterilizers, 4 max gpm, 8W, V Style, 1 lamp, 8W bulb, 1-1/4

[Thamnophis]

To kill the bacteria, etc. in our reptilezoo we use Hibicet. Every terrarium is cleaned with it once a week.

[boeh]

Thanx Rick. I'll check that out.

The sick snake's cage is cleaned every 2-3 days. On every waterchange he will be putted in a steril box. The "old" box will be "filled" with bleach solution for 1 day. then the box gets very good washed with water for the next adoption. He even only gets feeded in the clean box, to minimize the danger of re-infect.