# What are these white bugs in my scorp tanks???



## electrophyste (Apr 15, 2008)

What is this???





there all over my scorpion tanks 3 out of 5 how do i get rid of them??
are they dangerous to the scorpion??


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## ~Abyss~ (Apr 15, 2008)

electrophyste said:


> What is this???
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thats a nice picture of a mite. Some mites are dangerous to your scorp but these are always found in tropical enclosures. No real way to get rid of them permenantly but I'm sure the one you showed won't harm your scorps. 
-Eddy


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## bugster (Apr 15, 2008)

*mites?*

count the legs---from the pic, it looks like eight and that means mites.  clean the tank and startover with new soil, etc.  try to carefully remove whatever u can see on ur specimens with a small brush that's damp.


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## electrophyste (Apr 15, 2008)

thank you ill do that right away


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## ~Abyss~ (Apr 15, 2008)

I dont see the need, your just going to get them again soon. In a tropical enclosure your always going to have mites.


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## Galapoheros (Apr 16, 2008)

Do you see these mites congregating and eating on the dead leftovers your scorps leave behind?  I'd watch for that.  If they do, start taking out any leftovers you see in the tank, which is a good idea anyway.  I have pillbugs, tiny predatory Rove beetles (that just happened to pop up in one of my cages) and pred mites(that one in the pic doesn't look like a pred mite to me, that doesn't mean it's not though) in my Hisser cage.  Pred mites can keep the numbers down on those small slow moving cream colored mites.  Anyway, I took spoonfuls of that sub and dumped them in my other cages.  I've never seen the cream colored mites in my emp cages.  They may be there but if they are, they never reproduce in big enough numbers to make themselves obvious.  There are A LOT of mites threads.  You can do a "search" on this site for mites if you want to read a lot of input about them.  A lot of the time they are "grain mites" that I've seen on the crickets you buy at the pet stores to feed your animals.  I'm pretty sure that's how they end up most of the time in the cages.


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## Mr. Mordax (Apr 17, 2008)

From what I can tell in the photo, that looks like a predatory mite . . . unless you have God's personal macro lens, you won't get that clear of a shot of a grain mite.

Incidentally, I work in a lab where a good portion of my duties involve recording populations of "good" and "bad" mites, so I know how to tell the difference.  

Edit:  By the way, predatory mites are good and help to keep the bad mite populations in check.  They'll happily scavenge your scorpion's leftovers if there's no mites for them to feed on, though.


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## 357wheelgunner (Apr 18, 2008)

I saw one crawing up the glass on the side of my emporers' tank, I was going to find some isopods outside tomorrow.

Would that clear them up and help with the scraps from the scorp food?


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## JMoran1097 (Apr 19, 2008)

if you have a pretty hefty infestation, your best bet is to remove the scorpion from the enclosure and either replace the substrate (really unnecessary)  or remove the mite-infested substrate, "wash" it (includes re-soaking it and wringing it out), and then putting it in the oven to kill any leftover eggs or small mites that could still be present.

then re-soak the substrate while doing all the normal for substrate replacement, replace the false bottom, and then your scorp, and you're done.


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## Galapoheros (Apr 20, 2008)

If they are the annoying slow moving grain mites that is usually the annoying mite infestation we get in the hobby, the frustrating problem is that when you clean everything, because of their nature to hang out on arthropods, there almost certainly will be ones on your scorp that you don't see.  So they crawl off your scrop and begin walking around on the sub you just cleaned up.  If you keep them starved by taking out all leftovers, you can possibly get rid of them, or at least you can prevent a population explosion and keep them under control that way.  It's been working for me anyway.


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## Mr. Mordax (Apr 20, 2008)

Until I see a size reference photo, or a shot of it on a scorpion, I'm not convinced it's a grain mite.


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## Galapoheros (Apr 20, 2008)

More pics would certainly help.  I wish he'd take a close up of part of one of the scorps, he's got the camera to do it.  Kind of looks like he left.


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## electrophyste (Apr 21, 2008)

Galapoheros said:


> More pics would certainly help.  I wish he'd take a close up of part of one of the scorps, he's got the camera to do it.  Kind of looks like he left.


no i didnt leave i just replaced the substrate they were in all my scorp tank except for my desert scorp tank, they were even in my pacman frog tank, they wernt any on my scorp i did a thurow inspection on all of them

i havent seen any yet

thanks for the info


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