Grain mite explosion in tarantula enclosures

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Nope. They live in a large Kritter Keeper style container without a lid on it in room temperature that varies from as low as 60 F to as high as 80 F depending on the season. Dry oatmeal bedding, some pieces of cardboard egg flat for the larvae and beetles to climb on, and slices of apple or orange which are replaced when they start to rot. That's it other than an occasional spot clean to remove dead beetles and pupae. Once a year I have to clean the whole container with soap and water which I do by sifting out the frass from the living larvae, pupae, and beetles using a wire food strainer. All living stages of the beetles go into a temporary plastic container while their main container is cleaned. The bag of frass I end up with goes in the freezer for a few days to kill off any teeny tiny hatched mealworms that I can't see and the living things go back into their freshly made up container.



I always figured I never had mites because their container is always dry and I actually clean it every once in a while.

Are you supposed to put pupaes in a separate container ? I still haven’t got any . I’m I’ll go ask my questions on here.

Raising mealworms?? Tips ?

I was trying to raise some as a fun project because I’m bored . And I have a few smaller Ts that might eat them . I can’t tell when they’re dying Or pupae -inng . I should had went to the better pet shop so many were doa and lots are dying . Might be a lost cause … but worth a shot . 100 count...

arachnoboards.com

 

[The Snark]

I always figured I never had mites because their container is always dry and I actually clean it every once in a while.

Interesting and a very useful guideline to avoid grain mite infestations.
1. We employ clean and DRY, but your dry in TX and the dry in the general overall region of tropical S.E.Asia differ considerably. A weekly or monthly side by side chart of the relative humidity would be telling.
2. And of course, TX is not swamped in our ubiquitous rice fields and the harvesters virtually and literally saturating the air with airborne mites twice a year.

And another telling aspect; the Wheat belt of the US does not have anywhere near the mite infestation we have. Why? Simple. It drops below 50 F for significant periods and usually every night for several months. The temperature being a severely limiting factor in the mite reproductive cycle. Tropical S.E. Asia never gets down to 50 F in the lowlands where most of the rice fields are located. Wet rice, the common rice grown here, requires a lot of irrigation which isn't practical except in the lowland plains region.

I imagine a series of night of nights of heavy frost would decimate the mite population. We had a heavy frost here a few years ago. Up at the top of the highest mountain in the county. Pictures of the frost and ice were on the front page of every newspaper.