Gah

[Valael]

I bought a B. Smithi today, bringing my collection up to 8. Although....one thing happened.



There were a few decomposed cricket bodies in there, and you guessed it! Mites were on them.



I'd prefer to not have to return it, if that's possible. I gave it new substrate and seperated it from all of my spiders. Is there any way to get rid of them? Or should I say fug it and return it?

 

[Mendi]

Keep it! Give it a new substrate and have it as dry as possible, with just the water dish. Soon you'll find the mites dead and floating in the water dish, clean them out and refill. Remove wastes asap and still have the only moisture the water dish. You can also buy preditory mites to kill and eat the mites, but I've been having good luck using a couple roly poly's in the cage as they seem to eat the wastes and mites too. Only one or two have been dinner theirselves, but they are easily replaced. You can find pillbugs or woodlice most anywhere. Just try to find them in an area that hasn't been chemically treated. Mites it seems are a part of keeping Ts as they are often brought in by the T itself and very likely the food items. We just have to keep them under control

 

[King_Looey]

Help this process along by using a damp cotton swab to pick up as many mites as possible, although this is extremely time consuming.

 

[MrDeranged]

I'd go with Mendi's advice. Just keep the tank substrate bone dry and clean and in no time most if not all of the mites will be dead outright, or in the water dish. IMO, it's pretty much impossible to have no mites, it's just a matter of controlling the amounts that you do have. How big is the infestation? Removing the cricket carcasses should have removed the majority of them as they like to stay on their food items. This is why it's imperative to remove leftovers as soon as possible. I would keep the T.

Good luck with it,

Scott

 

[Valael]

There were easily a hundred on the cricket body (Otherwise, I would have just assumed it was funny coloring around the eye turret), which I quickly flushed down the toilet, along with all of the dirt that came with it.



(This was after I put the spider in a seperate container...I had removed 2 bodies at the petstore, but decided to check for more...and well, I found friends.)

Well, Joy on Petbugs suggested a deli dish with a dry paper towel as substrate, and since my substrate in his home is already a little moist, I might just do that and set his home outside to bake in the sun.

 

[wayne]

Hey Nick did you get the smithi from Tom at the C-ville shop? Just curious.

Later

 

[Valael]

That's an affirmative, sir.




His "rosies" seem fine, but I never looked too close.

 

[rknralf]

I haven't been plagued by mites all that much, but when I notice them, I clean out the tank and replace the substrate.
Ralph

 

[King_Looey]

I have never been affected by mites, but maybe the weather in england is too cold for them to survive.

 

[krystal]

K_L: the mites were a little more than upset about that whole prince charles/camilla thing. maybe they all just packed up and left?

 

[King_Looey]

Thats not what happened at all. In the mid 18th century, the people of Great Britain gathered as many mites, ticks, fleas, snakes and spiders and sent them all over to america as a joke.

Most of the ships carrying this precious cargo arrived safely and released them all over the land. But a few ships crashed on a faraway land, and founded a colony. They wrecked the land and annoyed people the world over. They called that place Hong Kong.

 

[Mendi]

;P maybe as a joke we can send you some fire ants and Africanized bees back for a Halloween treat, oops trick =D ;P =D LOL

 

[King_Looey]

No thank you, we dont want them back. They bothered us for millenia, so we sent them to the yanks.