Predatory mites?

[Zelg]

Hey all. My new White Lipped has some little red mites running around. I noticed one crawling on him so I checked his water dish as that was a good place to check when my BP had them. Didnt see any so I figured it wasnt too bad. I took everything out, cleaned his enclosure, used the reptile spray and proventamite and redid his enclosure.

Fast forward to today, I take him out because hes recovering from a RI (coming along nicely it seems) and I needed to give him his shot. When I put him back I felt a little bug crawling on me and sure enough its those little red mites.

I'm wanting to try predatory mites and I'm wondering if anyone here in the states has a brand/company they prefer to use.

Also, do bags of cypress mulch ever contain these mites? Or is it likely it has just had them since he was shipped? I've literally only seen two of them but its the first time ive seen the red ones. My BP had black ones.

[Jim Smith]

First off, I'm sorry to hear about your snake having health issues and now mites. I recently experienced a very frustrating battle with mites on one of my snakes. I tried both Provent-A-Mite (PAM), and a solution of Nix over a period of about 7 months and still the darn things came back. I completely cleaned and vacuumed the cage, washed it with a bleach solution, sprayed the "solution" on and waited sometimes 3 weeks before returning my snake to the cage. Every time, they came back within a week or so and believe me, it was VERY frustrating to say the least. This last time I tried the predatory mites and so far, so good:) While you can certainly leave the snake in the cage with the predatory mites, I chose to removed her for 3 weeks to let the mite battles progress without a food source for the snake mites. It's now been about two weeks and she is still completely mite free. I've supplied a link to the company that I bought the mites from. Great people to do business with and very willing to answer any/all questions promptly. You will get enough "medium" with the mites and eggs in it to treat about 6 or 7 cages. I treated all of my cages, but I put an extra dose in the infected cage for good measure. So far, I am a very happy camper and hopefully mite free for a long, long time.

Stratiolaelaps scimitus (Hypoaspis miles) - Fungus Gnat, Thrips, Snake Mite Predator (http://www.biconet.com/biocontrol/hypoaspis.html)

Good luck and please keep us posted on your experience and progress.

[Zelg]

Awesome Jim. Thanks for the quick response. Glad to hear that youre having great success with thee predatory mites. Ill give tthe ones you linked a try and see how that goes.

[SnoopySnake]

It is possible that they're wood mites and not snake mites, but I'd get the predatory mites anyway just to be safe. I didn't end up using them because we're tight on money right now, so I'm using both NIX and hot shot no pest strips.

[Zelg]

Dont think they're wood mites but I dont know much about mites. Only seen a couple so far and they came off the snake. Havent found any in the water dish yet. Ordered the predatory mites so we'll see how that goes.

[Wingbeats]

Occasionally wood mites can show up on wood substrate, I've heard. Some folks toss their cypress mulch into the freezer for a while to kill off stuff.

There is also a way to bake substrate in the oven safely, which is also effective, but I forget what oven temperatures are used.