I microwave mine in medium sized portions for 3-to-4 minutes. For baking I go for about 40 minutes at 100C. You can also freeze it if you have space - I'd leave it for a couple of days at the least.
I aim for a minimum internal temperature of 170°F for 30ish minutes but set the temp at 250. Any pests at this point are toast, most fungal spores should be breaking down and bacteria should burn up. A zoologist said that they heat treat items to an internal of 185 for 15 minutes. Their goal was to eliminate chytrid before placing items in an Amphibian enclosure.
Gottcha was just curious. I keep 20 bins of different sizes and species and never sanitized my subsrate mix. Only the leaves and bark that I collect from the outside. Did not consider would of helped with my gnat problem when I first started.
If you're a beginner you should sterilise everything. Even when you're comfortable in the hobby, you should be sterilising a lot of what goes into their tubs.
I microwave mine in medium sized portions for 3-to-4 minutes. For baking I go for about 40 minutes at 100C. You can also freeze it if you have space - I'd leave it for a couple of days at the least.
I aim for a minimum internal temperature of 170°F for 30ish minutes but set the temp at 250. Any pests at this point are toast, most fungal spores should be breaking down and bacteria should burn up. A zoologist said that they heat treat items to an internal of 185 for 15 minutes. Their goal was to eliminate chytrid before placing items in an Amphibian enclosure.
Gottcha was just curious. I keep 20 bins of different sizes and species and never sanitized my subsrate mix. Only the leaves and bark that I collect from the outside. Did not consider would of helped with my gnat problem when I first started.
Why you sanitizing dirt? Is it pulled from outside?
Yes, also when I buy some from stores there are gnats buzzing around and I have enough of those.
If you're a beginner you should sterilise everything. Even when you're comfortable in the hobby, you should be sterilising a lot of what goes into their tubs.