PREDATORY MITES! (Kills snake mites)

[krakerlip]

has anyone here used predatory mites and had success. I have some snakes kept in bioactive enclosures and some on your every day cypress with simple hide and water bowl and so on. Any who as far as the bioactive enclosures go I highly doubt I can spray any mite killing chemical in there with out destroying plants and the spring tails and so on. There for predatory mites would be perfect as long as they actually work as good as what I have read about them. Hope this post gets a lot of notice I'm really interested in these guys. Also if there is any other way to get rid of mites in a bioactive enclosure or maybe one that isn't bioactive but does have soil and live plants please share.

[dannybgoode]

Predatory mites are perfect for bio enclosure. 100% effective, 100% safe.

They may even maintain a colony if you have springtails in there as they'll feed on those also.

[krakerlip]

Man that's nice to know ! Have you used them before and what kind do I look for where do I purchase and all that good stuff !?

[dannybgoode]

I'm in the UK so don't know where to get them from your neck of the woods I'm afraid.

[Jim Smith]

I had mites in two of my enclosures and I tried all of the "regular" remedies PAM, etc. including complete cage cleaning/disinfecting between each treatment. Over a six month period, none of that worked. I finally tried predatory mites and they did the trick in one treatment. If I am ever unlucky enough to get mites again, then I will skip all the hassles and go right for the predatory mites.
Here is where I bought the ones I used. Stratiolaelaps scimitus (Hypoaspis miles) - Fungus Gnat, Thrips, Snake Mite Predator (http://www.biconet.com/biocontrol/hypoaspis.html) You have to use them up within two weeks of receiving them or they will starve to death. the $35 batch will easily treat six 4x2x2 cages.

[akane]

Snake mites specifically no but I had them wipe out horrid tropical rat mite infestation from wild rodents that just kept bringing it back and infested my entire wood house with repeated deaths of my captive rodents despite treatment and preventative across the floors and under the bedding of the cages to try to kill them before biting. I had a cat on prednisone and a dog on antibiotics from reactions to the bites. I had myself on meds and prescription steroid cream. Made a bioactive tank with soil from my yard which is apparently just full of harmless mites so at least one species of mite eating mite and all gone. Just been cleaning up all that dang powder from about my floors since late last fall. I keep finding more every time I sweep a room. I also sometimes see bird mites from my neighbors mass population in his attic that vents next to my house but never in my pet birds.

Aside from natural sources you can find them fairly easily online. Even amazon.com has multiple species. I'm not sure if there is an ideal since they are not listed to target snake mites or even any animal parasitic mites but they have the hypoaspis species specifically listed and a seller with various lots of a mix of 4 predatory species designed to cover many spider mites. If you do bioactive they will eat small soil critters too like springtails and are used to kill plant pests in gardens so they will persist longer and eventually if you want a full cleanup crew your tanks need new cultures after the mites have eaten themselves to death.

[pet_snake_78]

I know for sure they are for sale in Europe so maybe you have to have them mail ordered. I think in Europe one variety is sold as Tarrus or similar? I ordered them from amazon in USA but they didn't seem very good. I placed another order Arbico or something like that seemed to have more live ones in it.

[dannybgoode]

If you can get them shipped from over here then look no further than bioactiveherps.co.uk

Tarron and Louise will look after you if at all they can.

[akane]

The exact species is probably not the same between countries and while they'll work that sounds like a potentially bad thing for the ecosystem if legal to import. You can slip by a lot of stuff like that without it being legal to import because the packages aren't checked that closely if not labelled. Those suckers don't stay contained. I had them travel the whole house from glass tanks. Mites love to escape as you should know how contagious snake mites are if you aren't careful doing things around each tank and even room to room. The even littler mites you will have everywhere if you have them somewhere.