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Ratmosphere

Arachnoking
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Aug 23, 2015
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So I thought my enclosure setup was perfect. The other day I saw at least 10 fungus gnats or fruit flies in my African giant millipedes' enclosure. I feel like mites will be next, ugh.
 

Marika

Arachnoangel
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Feb 7, 2016
Messages
777
I have fruit flies in my enclosures too, they are annoying -.- At one point I thought they had all died, but no, now there are dozens. No mites though, so that's good. I have springtails and dwarf isopods in my enclosures, I guess they help keeping mites out.
 

mickiem

Arachnoprince
Active Member
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Jul 23, 2016
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Fruit flies come and go for me. I have more when my humidity is up. If it gets bad I take the lid off for a few hours. That helps. I used to have my AGB cage too wet and had them all the time.
 
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Ratmosphere

Arachnoking
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
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2,294
I have fruit flies in my enclosures too, they are annoying -.- At one point I thought they had all died, but no, now there are dozens. No mites though, so that's good. I have springtails and dwarf isopods in my enclosures, I guess they help keeping mites out.
Which website do you get these from, and how many? I need to prevent mites at all cost!
 

Marika

Arachnoangel
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Feb 7, 2016
Messages
777
Which website do you get these from, and how many? I need to prevent mites at all cost!
The springtails are from a Finnish website (I'm from Finland), and if I remember correctly, the isopods came with some of my millipedes, there were a few of them in the substrate the pedes came with. I add a small number of them in new enclosures, they reproduce pretty fast.
 

BobBarley

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Sep 16, 2015
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Fungus gnats aren't really a problem... I don't care about them as they don't harm anything, however, my parents sometimes mention it and I have found that a heat humidifier can decimate their population in a week or two. They love heat and humidity, so they fly into the steam and die.
 

Ratmosphere

Arachnoking
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Aug 23, 2015
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Really informative! If I want to add isopods, which species would be best? This is considering that the millipede enclosure is kept slightly damp.
 

pannaking22

Arachnoemperor
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Nov 25, 2011
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Which website do you get these from, and how many? I need to prevent mites at all cost!
You can get springtails from Roach Crossing, Bugs in Cyberspace, or even go outside and collect them yourself. With the winter warm snap coming up (around here anyway), I'm planning on going out and grabbing everything I can! Some isopods will even be active when snow is on the ground, so you can find them in the dead of winter.

Just a word of warming with isopods, some people have noticed that they will on rare occasions munch on molting millipedes, but I can't remember which species they were. I'd say if you get a non-burrowing isopod species you'll be fine (dwarf purples would probably be best and they reproduce almost as fast as T. tomentosa). T. tomentosa does burrow to an extent, but I've noticed that they really only do it if there's nothing for them to hide under.
 

pannaking22

Arachnoemperor
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They somehow manage to get out, but you won't have to worry about an infestation of your house (potentially other enclosures, yes, but they won't harm the occupants). And even if they do get out, odds are very very good you won't notice them in your home before they desiccate.
 

Ratmosphere

Arachnoking
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Aug 23, 2015
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Dang. Just came home and there are so many flies in my room. I know about home made fly traps but would sticky tape work for small fungus gnats?
 

mickiem

Arachnoprince
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Sticky tape works faster than cups of juice/ vinegar for me, but I usually use both to get it done quicker. You may have your enclosure too damp? That is when I get them. And be sure not to let fresh fruit stay more than a day.
 

Ratmosphere

Arachnoking
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Aug 23, 2015
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It may be too damp. Should I let it dry out or is this dangerous for an African giant millipede?
 

arizonablue

Arachnosquire
Joined
Jul 26, 2016
Messages
96
The sticky flypaper (the kind with no bait, just the yellow tubes you can get at the hardware store) work great for me. I kind of always have fungus gnats because I leave my door open all the time, and if you put a strip of flypaper under a heat lamp you'll have buckets of them getting stuck. Springtails really help cut down on the numbers, too, because there's less decaying organic matter for the gnats to eat.
 

arizonablue

Arachnosquire
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Jul 26, 2016
Messages
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It may be too damp. Should I let it dry out or is this dangerous for an African giant millipede?
You can let it dry out a bit. Fungus gnats will only breed in the top of the substrate, so as long as you leave something moist at the bottom for it to burrow down into if it needs moisture, the millipede should be fine.
 

Hisserdude

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Apr 18, 2015
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Which website do you get these from, and how many? I need to prevent mites at all cost!
I would get the Tropical pink springtails from Roachcrossing, they decimate grain mite populations in moist cages, and are less disruptive to the substrate and the millipedes than isopods.

Also, fungus gnats basically eat the exact same things your milipede eats, so there is really no eradicating them. They don't bother the millipedes at least, but it can be annoying having them flying around your room. I've learned to live with them though.
 

Ratmosphere

Arachnoking
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
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FullSizeRender-2.jpg

Just picked up a few of these today. Hopefully it gets rid of the problem. Also, does this species even burrow? I haven't witnessed mine do it yet.
 
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