I was feeding my MF rosea, who surely has to be gravid and she needed a water dish fill up because it went dry. Well shortly after I noticed some TINY silver mite looking things crawling about her enclosure and specially around the water dish. I didn't see any on her, and didn't bother to check everyone else, if one has them I'm sure the other do too. So questions are, are these really mites? are they harmful mites? Should I buy some predatory mites to eat/kill these guys? What happens when the predatory mites run out of other mites to eat/kill? Will they then turn on my T?
Would like input on mites
- Thread starter Bird Man
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Pictures would help. But to answer your questions, I would immediately clean out her entire enclosure and add new substrate after baking it. I don't think there exist such a species of mite that eats other mites... Although I have heard that isopods can eat mites. Either way, remove her immediately and completely sanitize her enclosure before moving her back in.
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clean the enclosure really well and check the others...nothing you can do about your T...shell shed them off in her next molt but get the molt out immediately after it comes off
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If they are gravitating toward the water dish they might be springtails, but if you find out they are mite you could dry things out and consider buying some predatory mites.
I suggest doing a forum search on "mites" as well as "predatory mites".
Regards,
I suggest doing a forum search on "mites" as well as "predatory mites".
Regards,
H miles eat eggs and there is also a spider mite preditor that is a mite
For all we know they could be springtails, or collembola, which are actually beneficial to the terrarium. As long as the suspected mites are not crawling on your tarantula, she should be okay; however, you should definitely rid the problem before she drops a sac.
H. miles will cannibalize each other when they run out of food.
Isopods are also a good option. They control mite populations by eating their eggs.
Unfortunatly there is no way I can get a pic of them. They are way too tiny for my camera to get a picture of them. I searched springtails and collembola on google, but all the pics were taken with some nice macro and I couldn't tell if they were them or not. Guess I'll be cleaning out T cages tomorrow.
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do let us know how it goes 
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Sounds like springtails to me. If you try to touch them do they jump? If you look at them under a magnifying glass do they have antennae and basically cricket shaped bodies? If so they're springtails and you shouldn't worry about them.
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Wait...you're having this problem in a rosea tank? :?
Well when I was touching them on her log hide they went squish instead of jump
I think I have a magnifying glass around here somewhere, but I'll have to see if I can dig it up. I do think they had antennae, but again they are so small it's hard to tell. As for shape they are kinda cricket shape I guess you could say. If they are springtails what are they good for that I shouldn't worry about them?Yes in my MF roseas tank. It's very dry in her enclosure, except for her water dish, I keep water in it, and every so often I let it go dry for a day or two, then I fill it and let it over flow a small amount. Which happened yesterday and that's when I noticed the little buggers coming out from who knows where for a drink.
Well I took another look at the little bugs and they do have antennae but idk about them jumping. I cleaned out big mama rosea, which she did not like, and then I checked my MM rosea and he had them too. So he got cleaned too. Going to check more cages today and clean and also order some H. miles.