Hahah, I'm thinking of tossing the background (the person on ebay listed the dimensions in the wrong order so I'm putting it on it's side to add vertical height), but It's glued in. I might try to just rip it out. For the terrarium, being second hand I''m definitely using chemicals.

It's a relief to know that boiling water is good enough for new stuff. I usually just rinse things a few times and put it in the terrarium.

The Exo Terra backgrounds look fairly bad. I'm going to make my own.

I accidentally burnt the branches in the oven. Woops. I'm acting on the assumption that slightly singed wood is fine for them.

Thanks heaps guys!