smal white bugs in cricket soil?

K73SK

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jan 1, 2009
Messages
5
So I was transferring my crickets to another cage so I could clean out theirs (I keep soil in there to lay babies). I generally keep the soil damn so the eggs can hatch and all that. Well, the last batch of babies had hatched a few weeks ago, and all the adult crickets have already died of age. Today, while transferring, I noticed at the corner of my eye something moving in the wet spot, where my water crystals usually lay to keep the soil damp. I looked very carefully, and there were a ton of white little bugs, nearly microscopable, crawling around in the wet soil. Over time, they burried themselves in the soil and I had to move it around to expose them.

No where else in the cage there are any of these. They are sticking to the wet soil only. Also, I wanted to note, that I cannot find these things ANYWHERE inside my other cricket cage (The one without soil).

Before feeding my tarantula's any of these crickets, I wanted to make sure these aren't some sort of mite or anything and are only soil pests or something. If they're mites, I might have to start my cricket breeding over again...*sigh*

let me know as soon as you guys can, thanks!

edit: uhh, I take that back. I just checked the dish that holds the water crystals in my "dry" cage and there ARE a few crawling around in there...Now I'm really worried. :\

edit2: there's a small pile of dead crickets and cricket skins in the corner of my cage. Digging through it and looking carefully, there's NOT a single one of the white bugs. Apparently they're only staying in wet spots...
 

AmbushArachnids

Arachnoculturist
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 30, 2010
Messages
629
I experienced mites when i raised crickets. I tossed all mine out. They can infest your collection. I would toss them and bleach your container.
 

briarpatch10

Arachnosquire
Joined
Jun 21, 2010
Messages
67
agentdoo6las is right! sounds like mites to me too.....pitch them and clean up the container
 

K73SK

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jan 1, 2009
Messages
5
I experienced mites when i raised crickets. I tossed all mine out. They can infest your collection. I would toss them and bleach your container.
I checked both of my tarantulas' cages and didn't find anything at all. Even under the water dishes, where it's damp, there were none and neither tarantula had them on their body (nor in the locations they were previously as I moved them around). I held them for a few minutes and didn't find a single thing crawling on me. So I'm having a less worry than before about these things, but I still want to ask about them.

If they ARE mites - then why are they only sticking to water sources and ignoring the insects? None of the cricket corpses seem to have them on their bodies and the mites aren't spread out...as mentioned, only at the water sources. If they were really mites, wouldn't they be all over the cages?
 

Le Wasp

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 25, 2007
Messages
243
do they jump when touched? If so, you might be dealing with springtails.
 

Remigius

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
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Jan 18, 2008
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320
I've never realy seen mites going totaly out of control in my T containers, so I would not throw these crickets away. If it was my risk - I would use these crickets as usualy, feeding, maybe, only the more arid-likeing Ts.

If you want to play safe - rehouse them and see if the infestation continues to exist :)

PS - I'm pretty sure mites exist everywhere, so they need a suitable environment to grow into a plague. Don't be so worried about them ;-)
 

K73SK

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jan 1, 2009
Messages
5
Ok, so I decided to take my HD video camera and record the things in a dish that's 1" x 1" in width x length. If you look VERY carefully, you'll see the critters moving around the soil. Sorry I couldn't get any closer than that, that's as close as my camera wanted to zoom in without blurring too much.

You may have to watch it in 720p to see what I'm talking about...Here's the vid:

[YOUTUBE]bbfuLLDCWz0[/YOUTUBE]
 

Hobo

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Staff member
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Jul 27, 2009
Messages
2,208
Ok, so I decided to take my HD video camera and record the things in a dish that's 1" x 1" in width x length. If you look VERY carefully, you'll see the critters moving around the soil. Sorry I couldn't get any closer than that, that's as close as my camera wanted to zoom in without blurring too much.

You may have to watch it in 720p to see what I'm talking about...Here's the vid:

[YOUTUBE]bbfuLLDCWz0[/YOUTUBE]
Really hard to see, but I don't think those are mites... at least not the mites that I dealt with that infested my cricket tub once. Those Mites tend to be really slow, and will definitely be on those dead crickets. From what I can make out, they are longer, and faster... might be springtales?
 

AmbushArachnids

Arachnoculturist
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 30, 2010
Messages
629
They definetly look like spring tails. In my experience i had dealt with parasitic mites not white mites. Srpringtails and white mites are no biggie. As long as you dont see yellow/clear mites you should be fine.
 

Offkillter

Arachnosquire
Joined
Jun 18, 2010
Messages
149
Thought I had spingtails in with my crickets once turned out to be baby crickets.They are incredibly small as babies and virtually indistinguishable without magnification.Just a thought,but if your really concerned get rid of the crickets but I say quarantine them and wait and see.
 

Cirith Ungol

Ministry of Fluffy Bunnies
Old Timer
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
3,886
The thing is - do they collect on your crickets? If no, then you can go down one DEFCON level.

But those things do indeed move very fast. Might be predatory mites. Because such move relatively fast as well. Keep tub under observation. If the things hop, they are springtails. Springtails are good for you. Best thing you could wish for really.

If they die out within 2 weeks, they were predatory mites and subsequently all other mites in that tub should be dead by then.

If nothing of the above applies - then no idea.
 
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