Stupid mites

[Laura Lee]

My pede has the dark variety of mites that crawl around by his legs. I've heard these are the beneficial kind, but they're still starting to bug me. For the first few months of having him, he only had a few of them. Suddenly, there has been an explosion of them and there are huge colonies of them living all over him. Today I tried to lightly scrape some of them off with a paper clip and got a few of them but I think some may have crawled away into my house. And I got inked like crazy... all my fingers on one hand are stained dark red... I think he's had enough of it for today. Do these mites like to inhabit other animals, like people or birds, by any chance? Can they be harmful in large numbers or should I just leave him alone? I just don't like to ever handle him anymore with all the mites cause I'm worried they'll crawl off and bite me or something...

 

[Galapoheros]

I would do a 'search' on this forum for 'mites'. You might want to also type in 'millipedes' or 'millipede'. I would be surprised if you still have any questions after reading all the info.

 

[crashergs]

i didnt like the mites on my african giants, i had to painfully scrape each one, one by one by one. dont ever use paper clips or any metallic object that has sharp edges, you can accidently harm the pede.

i used alot of q-tips and then a cup of water to flick the captured mites and drown them. how i did it, i soaked the tip of the qtip and then pinched it with my thumb and index finder to make a /\ <-- tip of qtip, and then when the pede will curl up to a ball, thats my time to start removing, i would quickly scrape the mite off, using the /\ tip of the qtip between their exoskeleton and their legs, usually where the mites reside, a quick swipe would usually get them off the pede and into the water, then you continue this, all while gently handling the pede only so they can ball up, not squirt all over the place... use your imagination, thats what i did, i successfully removed 80+ mites on 3 AGBS

I personally didnt like them because they reminded me of mites from cats n crap which i hate, so off they go i dont care of their importance, they are not in the wild where they would need them deeply. cheers