Damn Mites!

[Lasiodora]

I can never seem to be rid of these annoying little arachnids. I always remove leftover crickect parts. All of my T's except my redknee's are tropical. I know the mites love that. Is there an easy way to deal with these. How does everyone with big collections approach the problem? Should I even bother. Would they pose a threat to healthy Ts?
Mike

______________________________
"In the end we will only conserve what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." Baba Dioum

 

[Theraphosa]

are you talking about those little white bug that you need a flashlight to see it? if so.. I have mites too... I can't seem to kill them all and every time I put a fresh water bowl for my tarantulas, they always jump in for a swim.

 

[Lasiodora]

yep, that's them.

 

[Mojo Jojo]

Are you positive that they aren't baby crickets?

You could probably get rid of all the substrate, clean the vivarium out really well, and then put in 100% new substrate.

That is all I can think of.

Big Dragonfly

 

[Theraphosa]

I'm very sure they are not baby crickets because I've seen pinhead crickets before and they are a lot bigger than mites.. yeah... I was thinking to clean my rosie's cage anyway..

 

[Henry Kane]

They can be gotten rid of, but it's a big pain in the butt and takes some persistance.


Atrax

 

[Mister Internet]

What I remember hearing is that you definitely want to get rid of them if you have slings, but for adult T's, they won't really affect them unless there's a WHOLE LOT of them. A lot of people here have ordered predatory mites to let loose in the T cage to eat the bad mites. The predatry mites die after a few weeks anyway after their food (the pest mites) are gone. I think you can order them from www.biconet.com .... the species I've seen recommended is Hypoaspis miles, which is found on that website here: http://www.biconet.com/biocontrol/hypoaspis.html

Hope that helps... if you do a searh for "mites" on the forums, you'll find a lot of other helps too.

 

[Theraphosa]

aww yeah!... thanks man.....

 

[Lycanthrope]

i recently had some luck doing away with an infestation. what i did was remove the T (A. seemanni) from the enclosure, took out the water dish, and put 2 sun lamps over the substrate. i left it there for about 72 hours, stirring the soil twice a day. when the cage dries out like it did (very dry), the mites die off. might sound impractical compared to just cleaning the cage, but it works.

 

[Kenny]

Moist.

Hi all.

I'm gonna stick out my neck here.

I'm not at all an expert, I'm other way around a complet rookie, I have had T's ( 9 T's in total for now ) for 6 - 7 months and I have 1 Malaysian Earth Tiger, 2 Versicolors, 1 Pulchra, 1 V.Suntiger and so on.
All have done 1 to 4 molts each easily without problems.

The Earth tiger did a good molt 2 days ago and the only thing I have done with the Earth tiger is to mist the cage walls every day, never the substrate.
I keep the substrate fairly dry in all cages, ( though,, allways a waterdish with water in there) i.e. I never mist the substrate more than the water that happens to fall there when I mist the cage walls.
Touch wood I haven't seen any mites yet or mold and I have air flowing all the time by a fan on low aiming towards the cages.

The flowing air do dry out the cages faster , but I think IMHO that the mold/mite problem will reduce heavily due to drier enviroment.

Never keep it wet.

Kenny

 

[Joy]

Originally posted by Lasiodora
I can never seem to be rid of these annoying little arachnids. I always remove leftover crickect parts. All of my T's except my redknee's are tropical. I know the mites love that. Is there an easy way to deal with these. How does everyone with big collections approach the problem? Should I even bother. Would they pose a threat to healthy Ts?
Mike

______________________________
It IS an ongoing battle, as others have said, but mites usually aren't a concern with adult tarantulas unless there's a major infestation. I use predatory mites for major outbreaks. They aren't a problem in most of my vivaria, as I prefer whenever possible to use a dry substrate with restricted ventilation to raise humidity. For species that must be kept moist, I've had good luck using pure peat (whose natural acidity is supposed to discourage mites) and avoiding the use of crickets, which are the number one source for mites IME.

Joy