mites are starting to breed

[barkobarko]

help guys, i have this b.dubia colony and starting to grow to become a breeder soon, but to my surprise mites are also starting there own colony.

what should i do?
if i remove the food items my dubia's could get starved and probably die.
should i transfer my colony to a new enclosure?

please help me how can i get rid of these mites

 

[Stylopidae]

help guys, i have this b.dubia colony and starting to grow to become a breeder soon, but to my surprise mites are also starting there own colony.

what should i do?
if i remove the food items my dubia's could get starved and probably die.
should i transfer my colony to a new enclosure?

please help me how can i get rid of these mites

Well, first we need to know a bit more about your enclosure. Diagnosing any problem is impossible without any knowledge of what conditions you're keeping them. Different problems have different causes and the most common cause of mites is too much moisture. Take out any water dishes and dry the enclosure out. This should take care of the problem.

 

[barkobarko]

enclosure

my enclosure is about 12x9x12 in size, with a screen top cover, inside is an egg carton for the roach's hide, underneath the egg crates is the food-item scattered underneath for easy consumption, beside the egg-crates is the water-dish.

thats all, i also noticed that the mites are mostly on the egg-crates, although some are roaming around on the food-items(pedegree).

then from there they flourished, maybe less than a hundred but not sure because they're everywhere.

 

[Matt K]

Mites are not necessarily a problem. It depends on the type of mite. I have 5 obviously different mites roaming in numbers along with huge numbers of springtails in roach colonies that are thriving. That being said, though, if I leave dry animal food in the cage uneaten more that 2 or 3 days, or fruit peels left in the cage, another ball shaped off-white slow moving mite appears all over the uneaten food. I have been told that these in huge numbers are a problem so I remove the uneaten food after 3 days mites or not. The other 5 mites don't seem particularly drawn to the food like the round off-white ones are....they just come and go.

Now the spring tails flock by the 100's to ffod items, but seem to share with the roaches just fine

Observation.
Matt K

 

[dirk14]

clean up as often as you can...