Red velvet mites

[Mirandarachnid]

Anyone have any tips on keeping/culturing these guys? I found some under a log today and I always thought they were incredibly cool. I'll post some pictures when I wake up.

Thanks in advance!

 

[pannaking22]

I'd guess keep them humid and feed them...not really sure what to feed them. I assume they're detritovores or they may feed on small arthropods in the soil/leaf litter.

 

[Mirandarachnid]

Looks like the larvae are parasitic and the nymphs/adults are predatory. There was a user here that had a couple of informative posts about them in 2013, but they haven't been active since 2015.

I've kept a colony of velvet mites Trombidiidae family (not to be confused with the similar and medically significant family Trombiculidae AKA "Chiggers" which feed on mammals including humans).

The red-velvet mites I caught were very active predators. I used silverfish & isopods as feeders, as they reproduce quite easily and do not require a lot of extra up-keeping on the feeding end of things. The colony was pretty self-sustaining for awhile. They will eat pretty much any small/medium sized invert (probably not anything bigger then a grasshopper)

I do not recommend keeping these if you're a novice on mites. Mites can be tough to keep in captivity, and since they have relatively short lifespans, you would need to get a good colony going to really enjoy them. I used a large water cooler bottle (the huge ones that people fill with pennies) with a narrow opening allowing for minimal issues when providing new food. I cut quarter sized holes for cross ventilation, and hot glued thin nylon to cover it. You gotta make a lot of holes for ventilation, as the nylon restricts the O2 passage a bit.

It was cool to collect them and see the different life-stages; egg hatches and turns into pre-larva, which grows a little then turns full larva and finds a host. After getting its fill on a host it turns into a protnymph, then deutonymph and finally a tritonymph. Eventually they turn adult male or female. In the wild they breed once a year during spring I believe, but in captivity they were breeding a lot more frequently.

Yes they can climb all surfaces, hence why a sealed off enclosure is required with nylon for ventilation.

Room temp/humidity is fine for these guys. As for substrate, you really want to taylor this to your choice of feeder. Since I used silver-fish and isopods (I know they ate the silver-fish, not sure about isopods) I used a substrate that worked well for their survival. AKA: I grabbed some dirt from outside lol. Dirt has some parasites already in it, some crawlers in it? Perfect, more food for the mites! They will literally parastize almost any invert. The surviving silver-fish/isopods kept the enclosure clean. A pretty good setup if you do it right. I also added some random sticks, pieces of plastic etc.

EDIT: I'm thinking about breaking of a chunk of the medium from my FFF culture and tossing it in with them. Maybe some dubia nymphs? I suppose I could go back to the area and collect some more soil with critters in it.

 

[pannaking22]

Oh man, I don't think I'd realized Ciphor had been off the boards for so long.

I'd say go back and get a little more soil and mix some FFF culture in and see what happens. I'm sure they'll love feeding on the larvae though I'm not sure how they would do with adult flies. Probably well since you have a flightless strain. The issues I see with dubia nymphs is that you'd have to basically use newborns or ones that are a molt or two in, but they will still burrow out of reach of the mites. Then they'll keep growing and get too big before long.

 

[Mirandarachnid]

Tiny eight legged strawberry pillows

I gave them some springtails, but the sp. I have is damn near microscopic, so I know they'll need more than that. I'll be able to get some more soil from the area tomorrow morning, then I'll mix some of the FF medium in there, maybe try and find some of the larger local springtails around here.