Roach Mites - Looking for info

[Gail]

OK, I've been scanning the web and found a few bits of info:

It is fairly common to see tiny light-colored creatures, called mites, crawling on your roach. Just as dogs get fleas, Madagascan roaches sometimes carry mites. These mites only live on the roaches, and will not harm or live on humans. Mites can be removed by gently shaking the roach in a plastic bag with a small amount of flour (the "shake and bake" method). The mites fall off the roach into the flour. Tie off and discard the bag, and gently spray the excess flour off the roach with plain water from a plant mister or wash bottle. Mites may also be removed with a small paintbrush. Repeat the treatment if mites reappear. There is another kind of small mite that occasionally infests food; it can be controlled by discarding old food and changing litter.

Just as dogs get fleas, Madagascar roaches sometimes have mites.
These mites will remain only on the roaches and do not seem to harm
them; they do not live on humans!

Mites are nearly always present at one time or another with hissing cockroaches. Many people ignore them, since they don't appear to harm the cockroaches. If you're someone who raises hissing cockroaches to feed to your tarantulas, and there are many who do, you may need to fight the mites. There are two major ways.
The first is to wash off each cockroach under warm water then place them in a new cage. This is fine for people who don't keep many hissing cockroaches, but is next to impossible for very large colonies. The second major way is to purchase predator mites, generally sold as Hypoaspis sp., from a natural control beneficial insect and mite company. When the predators have cleaned out the nasty mite population, they'll die off themselves, usually completely.

OK, now that the quotes are out of the way here are the questions and my own observations.
First, I only just noticed these mite about a week ago, my colonies have been going for over a year. Second, some of the smaller roaches (less that an inch) are so covered with them that they appear to be dusty, when looked at closely under a magnifier you can see row after perfect row of mites. They DO seem to be harming some of the very small roaches. And take those ideas above that say "wash off the roach" and toss em, because these tiny little pale tan, almost white mites DO NOT BUDGE - not with water, not with a paint brush, not even trying to wipe off with a tissue. Scraping works, I have not yet tried the flour method. Considering that I probably have over 4,000 hissing roaches, it might take a while to treat them all
Thirdly - I keep my roaches in "hives" - upright boards spaced an inch apart, there is no substrate so if I were to try to use Hypoaspis predator mites, where would they go? I thought those type only lived in soil and attacked mites in the soil.
And last, but definately not least - only one of the refs above mention tarantulas and then they only say "you may need to fight the mites" so the question is are these mites a roach only deal or will they get onto my tarantuals? Are they dangerous for the T's? Will Hypoaspis mites crawl up onto T's and roaches to eat the bad mites?
This is really bugging me - pun intended - I don't want a mite problem on my T's or my roaches and I don't want to have to destroy all of my roach colonies and start from square one, especially if this is just going to show up again.

Gail

 

[danread]

Hi Gail,

to be honest, i can't see a way that you are going to be able to get rid of them. maybe if you add some sort of substrate (vermiculite?) you might be able to use Hypoapsis mites. In what way do you think they are harming the roaches? I've got the same sort of mites on all mine, and i can;t see that they are harming them in any way. I also havent seen any sign of them crossing over to any of my other inverts, so i just ignore them. I dont think they will infect your tarantulas, so i think it wil be safe to leave themn alone.

Cheers,

 

[Malhavoc's]

well if they are parasitic mites a great number of them could kill one of tyour roaches by draining it dry?

 

[Gail]

It just seems that they are harming the very small roaches simply by the number of them that pile onto just one little roach. It's very strange because although they are present on most of the roaches, the numbers on any one are rather small, except in the case of a few of the small ones that were covered, literally, from head to toe - even on the antenna. I think that they are impairing the little one's ability to move around and eat. But, again, that was only seen on a very small number of the smaller roaches and I culled them out.
It's a relief to know that they won't likely move over to the T's since further web searches seemed to make it clear that this type of mite is one that almost always lives on roaches and can be impossible to erradicate.
Thanks for the info about yours though, it always makes one feel better to hear it from someone who has the same problem and hasn't had it spread, rather than to read about it on some scientific page

Gail

 

[danread]

Hi Gail,

I think you're right that if they are in large numbers on the smaller ones it might harm them in some way, even if it just results in slower growth due to the parasite load.
The only suggestion i have is to try and increase the ventilation in the roach bin a bit, dryer air should inhibit the mite reproduction, and the hissers are fairly tolerant of dry air. I can imagine that 4,000 roaches produce a fair amount of moisture just through respiration and feces.

Cheers,

 

[Gail]

I can imagine that 4,000 roaches produce a fair amount of moisture just through respiration and feces.

You ain't just whistling dixie I clean out their bins/tanks about every two weeks. I'm going to try the increased air flow and see if that helps - I actually think it should, but this means the squirt bottle is gonna have to come out for the cats again I normally keep the roaches about 75% covered to deter the cats from fussing around on top of the bins, trying to dig in and steal a "toy". When the covers come off and they can see through the screened lids again, they are going to be up on those containers.
I must say though, that even though the roaches are mainly a food item for my other inverts, I find them so facinating in their own right, which is probably why I have so many and am not looking forward to sending a bunch on their way when I start being a vender at the reptile show in December or January. It's sad, I know but I have "favorites" with names like "The King" (He's the biggest I've ever seen, about 4" and very robust) and I'll actually sit down in front of the one tank with my lunch just to watch their crazy antics.

Gail

 

[danread]

I must admit that i didnt relaly like my hissers when i first got them, but they have grown on me. I agree they can be quite entertaining to watch. Unfortunately i'm getting rid of mine, as i need the space for more prolific roaches, and as they have to be in my bedroom, i'm getting sick of how noisy they are at night! They are getting replaced by a colony of orange heads, as i think they are a better size for most of my inverts.

Cheers,

 

[Gail]

Orange heads are one that I don't have, just because they are one of the few roaches which will attack and eat other inverts with glee. I would be afraid to feed the little ones to my slings for that fact. I use baby lobster roaches for my slings and what I like about them is that they are so "afraid" of the spiders that even if I happen to throw some into a sling that is ready to molt, the sling can molt with them in there and I've never had them attack it. That can't be said of crickets or orange heads IMHO. But I'd guess that if you only have sub-adults and adults you're feeding orange heads to it wouldn't be as much of a worry. And if it's centipedes, well, nothing messes with them ;P
I can understand you wanting the hissers out of your bedroom because of the noise With all of the one's I've got it can be really loud down in the invert room and the males have actually on occassion gotten into such tussies and chase abouts that they've knocked food dishes around so loudly I could hear them up in my bedroom - on the second floor LOL

Gail

 

[xelda]

I don't know much about mites on the roaches, but it's possible there's some kind of symbiotic relationship if they exclusively live on hissers. Maybe they help to keep the roach clean?

Anyway, I think orange heads are the only roaches I keep with an odor that I find nauseating. It's only apparent when they're gathered in groups, but man. It smells like rotten silkworms. They are prolific though. I also prefer to feed baby lobsters to my slings.

 

[ghost_tomb]

their are other things you can try to remove the mites, ladybirds and their larve eat mites and should wolf yours down, pinhead crickets also eat mites but they could become smelly etc

so try to find ladybirds and those should have no trouble in climbing everywhere the mites are, but first take out one of the small roaches that has lots of mites on it and put it in a tub with the ladybirds and see what happens just to make sure that they eat them.

 

[Senobyte]

Hi All
I bought some hissers last week at the AES invert show here in London as feeder food for my pede. They're massive and it was just meant to be the one as a treat but 6 came in the tub and actually they're pretty nice so I've kept them. I've only just noticed the small mites on the hissers. I also think it might be like a symbiotic relationship with the hissers only as I can't see them going onto the dubia roaches that the hissers are in with. I already fed the gluton of a pede of hisser and it took over 2 hours to eat. I'm think in that 2 hours a mite or 2 may have crawled up the pede. Should I turf the rest of the roaches just incase or try and do the shake and bake thing. They're really too big for the pede to take down anyways, the pede is about 18cm. Good idea about lady birds, i'll try that but realistically I'll probably have to destroy the raoches and not take the risk on my beasty pede.
thanks again for your help

 

[Gail]

Hi All
I also think it might be like a symbiotic relationship with the hissers only as I can't see them going onto the dubia roaches that the hissers are in with.

They usually only live on the hissers, they feed on scraps from the hissers, skin stuff, etc. At least the common mites of hissers are like this. Even if they got on your pede, they won't likely hurt it. If you see that the mites on the hissers look like they are digging into the hissers and bloating up on blood sucking, that is a different kind of mite and I'd worry. But most likely just the little white and tan mites that in my past experience with hissers, do no harm to the roach or any other critters - but can make the human feel itchy just lookin at 'em.

 

[GiantVinegaroon]

Hi All
I bought some hissers last week at the AES invert show here in London as feeder food for my pede. They're massive and it was just meant to be the one as a treat but 6 came in the tub and actually they're pretty nice so I've kept them. I've only just noticed the small mites on the hissers. I also think it might be like a symbiotic relationship with the hissers only as I can't see them going onto the dubia roaches that the hissers are in with. I already fed the gluton of a pede of hisser and it took over 2 hours to eat. I'm think in that 2 hours a mite or 2 may have crawled up the pede. Should I turf the rest of the roaches just incase or try and do the shake and bake thing. They're really too big for the pede to take down anyways, the pede is about 18cm. Good idea about lady birds, i'll try that but realistically I'll probably have to destroy the raoches and not take the risk on my beasty pede.
thanks again for your help

I read a year or two ago a paper in which scientists studied the hisser mites and came to conclude that while they do eat scraps of food and saliva off the roaches, their activities do not have any significant effect on the cockroach host. Trying to find that paper....

....in the meantime...found this paper that totally contradicts what I just said...

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01647954.2012.662248#preview