Please help, skink has mites....

[Sophi]

Hi everyone.
I had some trouble with shipping prevent a mite and I won't have it for another week I think.

I've been keeping up with regular bathes and tank cleaning with reptile relife and zoo med wipe out. All snakes and skink are still on paper towels.

I Havn't seen any signs of mites in a few days, no signs at all that they have made it to either of my snakes either. Nothing in the bath water, water dish, paper towels or on the animal himself. How long do you think I need to keep up the paper towels and daily cleaning before I can go back to using aspen and cypress bedding for my animals? I feel so bad because my skink has nothing to dig in or burrow under and he seems to be getting restless and annoyed.

How long till I can be sure the mites are gone and not coming back? I would hate to set everything up all nice again just to have to tear it down.

[elkied243]

Just got done with this same struggle, luckily I only had my RTB at the time and my BP hasn't gotten them.

My advice to you is to recognize that this is a long, ongoing battle. For my one snake it took a good 2 weeks to cure and I am still doing weekly rub downs/baths. My prevent a mite never came in either.
The advice I got was to make sure you also wash everything surrounding your tank, because your snake is on a night stand that would mean cleaning your sheets. I spray the circumference of the floor by my tanks with my mite spray every 3-4 days just as another precaution. Good luck!

[pet_snake_78]

I read an ebook on amazon, I think it's called Understanding Reptile Parasites or similar, anyway it gives a detailed breakdown of the mite lifecycle. It's a good book for other reasons, too. I would recommend anyone owning reptiles give it a read.

[Sophi]

Originally Posted by elkied243

Just got done with this same struggle, luckily I only had my RTB at the time and my BP hasn't gotten them.

My advice to you is to recognize that this is a long, ongoing battle. For my one snake it took a good 2 weeks to cure and I am still doing weekly rub downs/baths. My prevent a mite never came in either.
The advice I got was to make sure you also wash everything surrounding your tank, because your snake is on a night stand that would mean cleaning your sheets. I spray the circumference of the floor by my tanks with my mite spray every 3-4 days just as another precaution. Good luck!

This is a good idea, thank you. I have since washed all my sheets. Lucky I have finally gotten ahold of the prevent-a-mite and I plan on spraying it around the furniture which has my skink Tank on it. I am super reluctant to use harsh chemicals around my animals though because they are all quite young. My Bp is only 5 months old and I'm unsure of the age of the skink, but he is ajuvenile, less than half the size he will be.

I also keep crested geckos in the same room and I'm worried about them.

I got the prevent-a-mite just to be safe as a last Resort but I would love to not have to use it. The back of the can says to use it on a furnished tank with bedding so I suppose I will have to set the tanks up again instead of keeping on paper towels.

Snakes and skink are eating normally and skink is still showing no signs of mites. Neither of my snakes have shown any signs of mites at all.

Did you order prevent-a-mite and it never came? I had a huge hassle with the website i ordered it from. I paid for overnight shipping and never received a tracking number or anything and no one would answer my calls or emails about it for over a week. I called my bank and had them cancel the order and refund me and the next day they sent the can out. But it came 8-9 days after I placed the order. (by then I had already canceled the charge and ordered it from somewhere else... So now I have extra.)

[elkied243]

Surprised they let you pay to over night it. It's an aerosol so it should only travel via ground (at least that's what lllreptile said).
Don't over worry about the poison. The tip I got from a video on lllreptile was that you can spray the tank down with the prevent a mite and let it sit (without your reptile in it) for a few hours and make sure you can't smell it in your tank before replacing it. I never got my prevent a mite but I was able to take care of my mites without it. Best of luck! Nice to see so many people who are as invested in their scale babies as I am!

[jjhill001]

Paper towels is a bedding technically.

[lady_bug87]

This thread gives me the ickies. some of this may have been covered already

1) Make sure they're snake mites and not wood mites (Snake mites are black.wood mites are not). Wood mites come from bedding. Snake mites do not.

2) if One animal has it they all do.

3) PAM cannot be sprayed on the animal just the enclosures. I would replace all bedding with paper towel. Empty the Tanks completely spray everything including paper towels and air it out for a couple hours before putting the snakes and stuff back in. No water bowl for 24h.

4) you're going to need to spray down you're whole house. Any place with upholstery or carpet.

5) a better more available method of mite prevention and treatment is Nix (lice shampoo). Mix 1/4 of the bottle in 1L of water. It can be.sprayed on everything including the animal. When we go to a show everything gets sprayed. The animals, the car, our clothes, our shoes, the children EVERYTHING.

The Nix dilution is good for a week. Still don't offer water for 24h


<shudders> good luck!

[Joshchimera]

I absolutely love Prevent-a-mite! It killed every last mite when I had my first ever break out of mites last winter. I picked my blue tongue skink clean just like you did! The product is the best out there, 3 hours after letting it sit in my two large enclosures did the killing of eggs and all mite families..! I wish you the best!

[Dalton93]

Oh, that is so terrible. You should remove all the pests from his room. I highly recommend hiring my Pest control Port Macquarie Company for professional pest management services. They will use organic products that are safe for the health.

[Sophi]

I keep getting updates for this so I just thought I'd let everyone know my skink and I have been mite free for months now

The reptile relife and prevent a mite did the trick.

[pinefamily]

Well done.