Help, Mites??!??

[Bjorgly]

Hi everyone,

I was inspecting my 1 inch baby G.pulchra's jar (with 2 inches of peat moss, half of it wet for substrate) for cricket remains to remove, and i saw a bazillion little grey super super small bugs, sorta looked like super super small flies. I immediately put the spider in a vial, washed the jar out with soap and rinsed it wel, added about 1-1.5 inches of peat, and wet 1/2 of it again for humidity. I think this time i will let it dry up more until it wet it again. What were these little bugs? there were TONES of em, i would have taken a pic but they were far to small to show up. Think any of them could be still on my tarantula or infected it??

Any input appreciated, as this has never happened to me before and there are none in my geniculata's cage, as the substrate is mostly wet in her cage too as she enjoys spilling the water dish all over the place frequently.

Thanks!

Mark

 

[Tranz]

Originally posted by Bjorgly
Hi everyone,

I was inspecting my 1 inch baby G.pulchra's jar (with 2 inches of peat moss, half of it wet for substrate) for cricket remains to remove, and i saw a bazillion little grey super super small bugs, sorta looked like super super small flies. I immediately put the spider in a vial, washed the jar out with soap and rinsed it wel, added about 1-1.5 inches of peat, and wet 1/2 of it again for humidity. I think this time i will let it dry up more until it wet it again. What were these little bugs? there were TONES of em, i would have taken a pic but they were far to small to show up. Think any of them could be still on my tarantula or infected it??

Any input appreciated, as this has never happened to me before and there are none in my geniculata's cage, as the substrate is mostly wet in her cage too as she enjoys spilling the water dish all over the place frequently.

Thanks!

Mark

I don't think you need to keep the substrate "wet". "Moist" is fine. Of course, there's often a fine line between the two. For drinking, you could just spray droplets of water on the sides of the cage, rather than directly onto the substrate.

 

[Code Monkey]

1. Did they have wings? If so fungus gnats or scuttle flies, scavengers that are attracted to the remains and fungus that are present in a moist vial. Scuttle flies are unlikely where you live, but fungus gnats are present. They're harmless in and of themselves but are suspected to be carriers of some of the nematodes that play a role in the 'anal plug' disease with Ts. I've seen a scuttle fly/fungus gnat once in my T room and it was a short time later that I lost a larger sling to the buttplug of doom so these are probably the biggest blip on the threat scale in my mind.

2. No wings, huh, did they "hop" when you disturbed them? Collembola insects, aka springtails. There are literally hundreds of species of springtails around the world and they are attracted to food remains, fungus, and moisture - exactly what even the most "immaculately kept" T container has. Springtails are very common in humid/moist environments, prolific, and completely harmless. I've got gazillions in some of my enclosures. I leave them alone because so long as they're there, they're competing for the same niche as mites. Trying to get rid of them would be like trying to get all the clutter on my computer desk - they'll just come back from somewhere else.

3. No wings, no hopping, might be mites. Even still, it's probably nothing to worry about. Almost all mites are free living. Myself, I would never do anything about mites unless I had reason to suspect they were parasitic. It's like sterilising substrate: once you've killed off all the harmless stuff, you leave it open for actual threates to move on in.

If it is mites and you want to do something, change the substrate like you did, with an adult T I'd tell you let it go bone dry for a while, but with a sling you'll have to settle for cleanliness.

 

[Bjorgly]

Thanks CM,

I really couldnt tell if they had wings or not they were so small, but there were tonnes of them. The did not hop, they just crawled, and were grey in color from what i could tell. They may of had wings, but if they did, they did not fly or hop.

Mark

 

[Chris]

It almost sounds like cricket hatchlings to me... seems mighty odd that you could have mites out in Alberta at this time of year but they might have already been in the peat moss.

Another very liley scenario is that they could have come in on crickets... I have heard a lot of people having trouble with that. I know I have no mites in my place because its far too dry... mites have never in 6 years been a problem for me.

 

[Lycanthrope]

It almost sounds like cricket hatchlings to me

i doubt its pinheads. i dont know about anyone else, but i dont feed live adult crix to 1 inch slings, let alone gravid female crix.

 

[Code Monkey]

Originally posted by Lycanthrope
i doubt its pinheads. i dont know about anyone else, but i dont feed live adult crix to 1 inch slings, let alone gravid female crix.

Good call

 

[Raveness]

I have those

Originally posted by Code Monkey
1. Did they have wings? If so fungus gnats or scuttle flies, scavengers that are attracted to the remains and fungus that are present in a moist vial. Scuttle flies are unlikely where you live, but fungus gnats are present. They're harmless in and of themselves but are suspected to be carriers of some of the nematodes that play a role in the 'anal plug' disease with Ts. I've seen a scuttle fly/fungus gnat once in my T room and it was a short time later that I lost a larger sling to the buttplug of doom so these are probably the biggest blip on the threat scale in my mind.

2. No wings, huh, did they "hop" when you disturbed them? Collembola insects, aka springtails. There are literally hundreds of species of springtails around the world and they are attracted to food remains, fungus, and moisture - exactly what even the most "immaculately kept" T container has. Springtails are very common in humid/moist environments, prolific, and completely harmless. I've got gazillions in some of my enclosures. I leave them alone because so long as they're there, they're competing for the same niche as mites. Trying to get rid of them would be like trying to get all the clutter on my computer desk - they'll just come back from somewhere else.

3. No wings, no hopping, might be mites. Even still, it's probably nothing to worry about. Almost all mites are free living. Myself, I would never do anything about mites unless I had reason to suspect they were parasitic. It's like sterilising substrate: once you've killed off all the harmless stuff, you leave it open for actual threates to move on in.

If it is mites and you want to do something, change the substrate like you did, with an adult T I'd tell you let it go bone dry for a while, but with a sling you'll have to settle for cleanliness.

 

[Chris]

Originally posted by Lycanthrope
i doubt its pinheads. i dont know about anyone else, but i dont feed live adult crix to 1 inch slings, let alone gravid female crix.

educate me... what does a gravid cricket look like?

 

[Seath]

educate me... what does a gravid cricket look like?

pregger crixs usually have the long black tube sticking out their rear, and walk around poking it in the substrate. Thus depositing their nasty lil off-spring eggs

seath

 

[Bjorgly]

Every cricket i fed the spiderling was a pre killed very small baby cricket...dont think it was baby crickets.

Mark

 

[looseyfur]

harm

theres no harm from tiny crix babys though right of course almost all of us have seen preggo crix sticking that arsetube into the substrate of our crix tanks while they are waiting to be eaten ... so is that a huge problem?

looseyfur