A. gigas Mites.

J Morningstar

J Morningstar

Arachnoprince
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The last shippment of AGB's I got last week (10 of them straight from Africa 2 weeks ago) are teeming with them. The ones I have in a tank since last year have 0, none... I was wondering as well, is there a happy medium for the hosts or do they live like ramorea? (the fish that attach themselves to sharks and live by getting debree from sharks)may have spelled that wrong..
 
shebeen

shebeen

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If you blast them with the canned air, you run the chance of freezing them due to adiabatic cooling.
 
K

Kiteflyer

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Aug 4, 2012
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Travis K said:
Yeah,

I wont be removing all of them. I got a 60x jewelers scope over the weekend and looked a the mites. They are very neat. I was sick this weekend though and only looked at them for about 15 mins.

I was watching to see just what they did on the AGB. I am interested to see them feeding specifically. I am thinking I will try the running water technique less one of the AGBs to keep some of the mites.

Cheers,
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I have two AGBs who have tons of mites. Mine looked twitchy and uncomfortable too, so I tried using a paintbrush to remove the mites. I got maybe 10-12 off of each millipede, but they've both got plenty left.

I did get to see the mites feed. After I put them back, my biggest millipede got a flake of fish food stuck on its head. After a couple of minutes, I noticed mites were swarming the flake of food. I counted seven of them eating the flake at once. After a few minutes, they'd finished it off. It was interesting to watch!
 
J Morningstar

J Morningstar

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After I fed my latest batch, they left some lettuce on the ground and it was swarming with the little guys, I would like to keep some of them going...I wonder if they live off moss or some other things in the AGB's environment when the millipedes aren't being messy.
 
SkyeSpider

SkyeSpider

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Just in case no one noticed: I never got a reply about how to remove the mites, although help seemed to be offered. I finally attempted it myself, but I went in blind on method. I ended up running the millipedes under a temperate tap. It mostly worked (I got off about 60-70% of the mites), but I really, REALLY stressed out the millipedes.

In case I need it again later, will someone please offer instructions on the method they used?
 
Elytra and Antenna

Elytra and Antenna

Arachnoking
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It's not that difficult to pick them off. There aren't that many of them and they're not that small. Alternative methods risk killing your animal.
 
spydrhunter1

spydrhunter1

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I've used the warm running water method, it seems to remove some of the mites, others take shelter around the pedes legs. Wear gloves because it truly pisses off the pedes and they start releasing the defensive secretions.
 
SDCPs

SDCPs

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Elytra and Antenna said:
It's not that difficult to pick them off. There aren't that many of them and they're not that small. Alternative methods risk killing your animal.
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I've read it might require 2 or 3 treatments but flicking them off with a small paint brush is the safest method...basically picking them off as ^ said.
 
spydrhunter1

spydrhunter1

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I've thought about predatory mites, but wasn't sure if they would harm the small pedelings.
 
J Morningstar

J Morningstar

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I Don't think They wouold hurt the pedelings, ut I don't think they could kill the mites...
 
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