- Joined
- Jan 3, 2019
- Messages
- 1,076
Hola,
I have an interesting question that I cant seem to find an answer to. I have a Scolopendra dehaani that I noticed with a mite problem several months ago. Normally, not too terrible of an issue, but she was obviously in discomfort (although it was kind of cute watching her scratch her head like a cat). I pulled her to a dry enclosure and for good measure, I overnight ordered a package of Hypoaspis miles. I kept her in the enclosure with the mites for about 4 weeks. I figured they had run their course by that time, as the bad mites were gone and their was no detritus in the tank for the H. miles to scavenge as they will do when their is no prey. Now, during those four weeks, I deep cleaned her old enclosure and set it up as a planted, bioactive tank complete with a healthy spring tail population. I coaxed her to climb up a wadded papertowel for the transfer so I didnt bring any substrate with her to the new tank. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I noticed two things, a sharp decrease in the spring tail population and a few predatory mites scavenging a piece of a dead roach. Currently, I have no spring tails that I can see and I still have the predatory mites. My question is this: Can the predatory mites do the same job as the spring tails with the same effectiveness? If they cant, is it a better idea to keep adding spring tail cultures to keep both a healthy population of H. miles and spring tails, or should I wait until I'm sure the predatory mites have run their course to reintroduce the springtails? Thoughts?
Thanks,
--Matt
I have an interesting question that I cant seem to find an answer to. I have a Scolopendra dehaani that I noticed with a mite problem several months ago. Normally, not too terrible of an issue, but she was obviously in discomfort (although it was kind of cute watching her scratch her head like a cat). I pulled her to a dry enclosure and for good measure, I overnight ordered a package of Hypoaspis miles. I kept her in the enclosure with the mites for about 4 weeks. I figured they had run their course by that time, as the bad mites were gone and their was no detritus in the tank for the H. miles to scavenge as they will do when their is no prey. Now, during those four weeks, I deep cleaned her old enclosure and set it up as a planted, bioactive tank complete with a healthy spring tail population. I coaxed her to climb up a wadded papertowel for the transfer so I didnt bring any substrate with her to the new tank. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I noticed two things, a sharp decrease in the spring tail population and a few predatory mites scavenging a piece of a dead roach. Currently, I have no spring tails that I can see and I still have the predatory mites. My question is this: Can the predatory mites do the same job as the spring tails with the same effectiveness? If they cant, is it a better idea to keep adding spring tail cultures to keep both a healthy population of H. miles and spring tails, or should I wait until I'm sure the predatory mites have run their course to reintroduce the springtails? Thoughts?
Thanks,
--Matt