Jesse Phillips
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2020
- Messages
- 1
Last night I happened to see a tiny white circular mite crawling across one of my land snails. My heart dropped, and when I looked closer I saw a few crawling around on every one of them (5 snails in that enclosure, although I also have 2 tiger snails and 2 Cuban brown snails in separate tanks).
I was trying to find information on these and I am almost certain they are Riccardoella limacum, or slug mites which would thankfully only effect my snails; but they feed off of the snails and make them inactive, leading to death. The only treatment that tends to wipe them out completely is the predatory mite Hypoaspis miles which eat the slug mite, but in the US you can only find them sold in massive amounts for high prices which I don’t think is a good idea (if you know of any sellers please tell me!). So, for right now I will have to rip apart my vivarium, take out all of the Helix aspersa/Cornu aspersum, give them a quick dunk into clean water & let them soak in shallow water for a while, sanitize the tank (throw out the dirt and boil decor), keep them in a minimal and clean setup of paper towel AWAY from my other snail tanks, and repeat this process daily.
PLEASE if you have any other suggestions at all tell me. My helix aspersa are especially special to me and now that I’ve noticed I can see that they’re suffering. Thank you
I was trying to find information on these and I am almost certain they are Riccardoella limacum, or slug mites which would thankfully only effect my snails; but they feed off of the snails and make them inactive, leading to death. The only treatment that tends to wipe them out completely is the predatory mite Hypoaspis miles which eat the slug mite, but in the US you can only find them sold in massive amounts for high prices which I don’t think is a good idea (if you know of any sellers please tell me!). So, for right now I will have to rip apart my vivarium, take out all of the Helix aspersa/Cornu aspersum, give them a quick dunk into clean water & let them soak in shallow water for a while, sanitize the tank (throw out the dirt and boil decor), keep them in a minimal and clean setup of paper towel AWAY from my other snail tanks, and repeat this process daily.
PLEASE if you have any other suggestions at all tell me. My helix aspersa are especially special to me and now that I’ve noticed I can see that they’re suffering. Thank you