# MITES!?!



## Kvoigt (Mar 12, 2012)

ok so i picked up kraken last night and saw a bunch of teeny tiny lil mites or lice or sumthin........ i dont know if they are bothering him or not BUT i checked on sonne and saw a cple on him and his eyes were red and verry irritated....i duno what to do i just found out i have to go out of town for like 4 days on thursday and will be bringing kraken with me so i can keep good care of him but my mother inlaw is going to feed and turn sonnes liights on and off for me but she wont touch him to soak him :/ so i will just soak him real good b4 i leave.... ok but what do i do about the mites? ive never had any other bug problem other than gnats... but these are a lil creepy..... the only thing i can think of is they got em from being out side b/c they are not housed together and they both have them and ive been bringen it em everyday.....

what do i do!? i just looked again and they are not all white some are darker...they are everywhere.... all over there shells i cant see em in the substrate...i can see a few gnats in the substrate ...im leaving town in a couple days..i cant leave him like that for 4 days...at least kraken will be with me a and i can spray him off all the time.... crap if its not one thing its another.....like no friggen joke...


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## Kvoigt (Mar 12, 2012)

ANYONE!? i dont know what to do..ive nevet had n animal with mites not even a cat..... WTH!!! are they really bad? are they gna make em sick? is this y sonnes eyes were red and angry? do i need to take everything out n clean it ? will that even help? crap... its stuff like this that makes me not want to bring them outside... i know that were they must have gotten em....the birds here cary them thick and its been nice out so im sure they are all over the grass...

this is really not what i need to be dealing with right now...ive got sooooo much going on ...this sux, even worse i dnt know what to do about it?


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## wellington (Mar 12, 2012)

What kind of substrate are you using? The best I can tell you is to either get new substrate, or bake the old substrate to kill the bugs.
I use coir. It does get some kind of small creepy crawly bugs in it, however I have never seen them on my tort. Hang on more will help out.


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 12, 2012)

There can be over the counter meds for him...I know they sell stuff for birds that are over the counter and they make sprays. Go to your pet store and see if they carry it. I never had to deal with this so I can't give you any confirmed answers but google would help and a pet store. If all else fails then the only thing I can say is Vet...those little blood suckers will eventually make him sick and they will not go away on their own, not even with a bath! I had them all over my green anoles when I was a teen.


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## SulcataSquirt (Mar 12, 2012)

I would clean the tank and replaces the substrate if they are everywhere. Id give your guys a nice long bath and keep putting water over him to get them all off, then replace water and repeat until you see their all off, when ever i bring my tort outside I always bath him in his tub before putting him back n his enclosure, for this reason.


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## Kvoigt (Mar 12, 2012)

ok so both torts have them and in one i have sphag peat moss mixed with plain dirt. the other has cypress mulch n coco coir...ive always seen lil black gnats that crawl in the dirt and fly around.... but these are wayyyyyy different i just cam from checking on them and didnt even see one bug on them but this AM they still had a bunch all over there shells... i also was digging around more in there and i noticed that the grass patch dirt is loaded with them little suckers...... i dont have any pet stores near me but on thursday im going out of town/state n maybe i will have to make time to go to the pet store n check it out.... im waayyy bummed guys i have no clue what to do or even how to even handle this right now....



SulcataSquirt said:


> I would clean the tank and replaces the substrate if they are everywhere. Id give your guys a nice long bath and keep putting water over him to get them all off, then replace water and repeat until you see their all off, when ever i bring my tort outside I always bath him in his tub before putting him back n his enclosure, for this reason.





i will deff be washing them off b4 bringin them back inside from now...i just never even thought.....


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## jesst (Mar 12, 2012)

I got lots of bugs when I used mulch and soil. I changed it out to just coco coir, and now the only bugs I see is from the plantsin their enclosure. They are just little gnats but are still annoying. Good luck, but I would change the substrate to just coir and see what happens.


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 12, 2012)

I'd listen to SUlcataSquirt and for now just keep washing them off and use a soft bristle brush or tootbrush and change the substrate right away and like Jesst said, use coir only! gluck and hope they go away on their own =/ 
For birds they have this liquid that you can buy on amazon and you put a drop (depending on their weight) in the water and/or spray it onto them but that's for birds, I have no clue what they do for reptiles but I'm pretty sure they have stuff because when I had my baby boa years back I had spray for him.


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## Kvoigt (Mar 12, 2012)

jesst said:


> I got lots of bugs when I used mulch and soil. I changed it out to just coco coir, and now the only bugs I see is from the plantsin their enclosure. They are just little gnats but are still annoying. Good luck, but I would change the substrate to just coir and see what happens.






the coco coir is just to much $$ for me to fill both a 4x5 table up 4 -6 inches and a 4x3 table up at least 3 inches..... thats y i got the sphag peat moss its pretty cheap for me and i had read about it being a lil bothersome to some torts so i mixed dirt it in with it..and as for the big tort table i used cypress mulch and a huge brick of coco coir that was given to me when i got him.. i dont want to use cypress mulch anymore i like it but i guess i like the live tree better  soo if i replace it all it will be with sphag peat moss.. its what i can afford at the moment on short notice....


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## wellington (Mar 12, 2012)

If you don't think you can get to the store to buy new stuff. Bake the old stuff or you can boil it. Either way should kill anything in it.


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## Kvoigt (Mar 12, 2012)

wellington said:


> If you don't think you can get to the store to buy new stuff. Bake the old stuff or you can boil it. Either way should kill anything in it.





lol i thought about it...but thats alot of work and dirt in my oven. it would take all night for me to bake everything.... lol and my kid is sick again and i have to plan this short notice trip into a different state....blah! im just gna go buy a new bag of sphag peat moss and clean out there homes....and replace with new.... but if they come right back i duno what the hell i will do... lol i dont do good with lice type stuff LOL i remember as a kid my sis got lice and i just threw everything away that she touched haha (dramatic 13 year old)..... but i doo keep spraying them to help with the pestering....



Kvoigt said:


> wellington said:
> 
> 
> > If you don't think you can get to the store to buy new stuff. Bake the old stuff or you can boil it. Either way should kill anything in it.
> ...






i might boil all the long sphag moss from all there hides ...if i were to bake it it would just crumble up into nothing...

one more thing...do i have to worry about these bugging me or my kids?


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 12, 2012)

If it's the same mite type blood suckers you described then No don't worry about it! I know it's gross to look at and think they can in fact do something to you guys but they are harmless to humans. =) Gluck and wish you have $$ set aside for your torty's next time for emergency. The 5 bricks I buy from Carolinapetsupply.com are $25 for 5 bricks and it expands quite alot <--I might be wrong but I'm sure they do free shipping on this. I used 2 Bricks for a 3 x 1.5 and it filled up to over 3 inches deep so when you do have time you should buy them in bulk and have extra of everything on hand =D Hope those suckers go away.


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## nicoleandrocky (Mar 12, 2012)

I don't know much about mites, but i would switch to newspaper for a while, and follow this
http://www.anapsid.org/mites.html


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## Kvoigt (Mar 12, 2012)

MORTYtheTORTY said:


> If it's the same mite type blood suckers you described then No don't worry about it! I know it's gross to look at and think they can in fact do something to you guys but they are harmless to humans. =) Gluck and wish you have $$ set aside for your torty's next time for emergency. The 5 bricks I buy from Carolinapetsupply.com are $25 for 5 bricks and it expands quite alot <--I might be wrong but I'm sure they do free shipping on this. I used 2 Bricks for a 3 x 1.5 and it filled up to over 3 inches deep so when you do have time you should buy them in bulk and have extra of everything on hand =D Hope those suckers go away.






the last brick i had was huge and costed 35$ my friend gave it to me with the tort... but it only filled good 1/3 of his table..so that would be 100$ just for one tort table and at least 70$ for the other t...thats if i can find free shipping....i have $$ saved for emergencys for them and a fast substrate change is not what im gna use it on...... would rather have $$ for somthin i cant manage around it...


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 12, 2012)

IDK how big your brick was but the ones in the petstore are small for the price they ask but I've never ordered anywhere else to compare so If you want just check out that petsupplystore I provided the link above. It's under substrate/bedding and it's $25 for 5 bricks and free shipping in the USA 1 brick expands to 7-8 liters and I think 5 expand to 1.6 cubic feet.


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## Kvoigt (Mar 12, 2012)

MORTYtheTORTY said:


> IDK how big your brick was but the ones in the petstore are small for the price they ask but I've never ordered anywhere else to compare so If you want just check out that petsupplystore I provided the link above. It's under substrate/bedding and it's $25 for 5 bricks and free shipping in the USA 1 brick expands to 7-8 liters and I think 5 expand to 1.6 cubic feet.





wow... see i need like 4 cubic feet... just for the big tort table i can get 6 cubic feet of peat moss for 15$ and it will cover both tables ...


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 12, 2012)

nicoleandrocky said:


> I don't know much about mites, but i would switch to newspaper for a while, and follow this
> http://www.anapsid.org/mites.html



RIGHT ON! I read it all and great info to keep on hand, should this happen to me in the future! You are right on the paper for a while and just many many soaks should get rid of it since there might not be meds for the torts but the cotton ball idea soaked in the med and dab on mites you see sounds better than dousing it maybe...



Kvoigt said:


> MORTYtheTORTY said:
> 
> 
> > IDK how big your brick was but the ones in the petstore are small for the price they ask but I've never ordered anywhere else to compare so If you want just check out that petsupplystore I provided the link above. It's under substrate/bedding and it's $25 for 5 bricks and free shipping in the USA 1 brick expands to 7-8 liters and I think 5 expand to 1.6 cubic feet.
> ...



yah your best bet would be peat moss then and just keep switching it out within the 6 weeks until they are completely rid of mites...did you read that link from nicoleandrocky? Good link, not specifying if it's for torts but it's good because that's the same thing you are dealing with...this is all good to know because I haven't thought about this occuring so whenever I put the torts outside I will start soaking them before putting em back in their enclosure.


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## hlester22 (Mar 12, 2012)

I don't know about torts, but my husband says that when snakes get mites, to wash them with dawn dish soap. Maybe this will work for you.


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 12, 2012)

hlester22 said:


> I don't know about torts, but my husband says that when snakes get mites, to wash them with dawn dish soap. Maybe this will work for you.



WHAAAAAAAAAAT? It works for reptiles too?? I know it works great on animals (with fur I mean). I use this on my dogs and cat and they also used this on the animals during the oil spill. It has to be blue dawn dish soap though...wow I never thought of using it on a reptile. How long has he been doing it with the snake? That will for sure kill them instantly and washing it in the enclosure as well...Are you for sure it works on Tortoises? They have meds for mites for snakes and lizards but toxic to torts so IDK if they can share the same product quialities? It'd be awesome to know though, thanks for that and hope to hear a reply =D


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## hlester22 (Mar 12, 2012)

Like I said, I don't know about torts, but it works on snakes so I can only assume it would work for them too. I would be very careful and make sure to rinse it all off very well.


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 12, 2012)

hlester22 said:


> Like I said, I don't know about torts, but it works on snakes so I can only assume it would work for them too. I would be very careful and make sure to rinse it all off very well.



How long has he been doing this with the snake?


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## StudentoftheReptile (Mar 12, 2012)

Extra virgin olive oil works well, too...as long as you avoid the eyes, mouth, nostrils.

Dish soap or olive oil,...the main idea is that you are essentially choking/drowning the mites. They can't crawl through it, swim in it, breathe it, nada. They die.

You still wnt to take the measures to make sure the rest of the enclosure is treated.


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## hlester22 (Mar 12, 2012)

Well, can't say our snakes have had any mite problems, but he used to run a pet store about 15 years ago and had to use this method several times on snakes that would come in with mites. He said it never had any ill effects on the snakes and got rid of the mites.


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 12, 2012)

That's good to know! I might take that in consideration...I'm sure the tort would be fine but just be extra careful and might need an extra person to hold the tort up since they can get into the eyes. I think washing with dawn would do the trick and then going over with olive oil and cleaning the enclosure with dawn as I stated above would def work! YAY THANKS GUYS...great info!


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## Kvoigt (Mar 12, 2012)

ok cool so heres whats gna happen i think..im going to scrub down both torts in a very mild dawn bath and SRUB the hell out of there enclosures tonight lay news paper down for the night boil all the long sphag moss and put that back in there.... i will do all this tonight and buy more peat moss tomarrow  and go from there.. keep a close eye here in a cple weeks for more and do it all again? does that sound like it could work?


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 12, 2012)

yes! Make sure you don't dilute the dawn so it will kill them instantly...it kills fleas in less than 2 minutes and since those suckers are smaller than you can use a tiny bit of dawn as it's easy to spread out...gluck and hope this works everything else you metioned sounds fantastic.


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## Kvoigt (Mar 12, 2012)

you know now that i think of it, my mom used to spray dawn dish soap water on her garden to keep certain bugs out


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## wellington (Mar 12, 2012)

FYI for the future. Coir can be found much cheaper on the Internet. Many different places. Just have to surf the net for the cheapest. Good luck to you and your torts, bad luck to your bugs
Sounds like you have a plan


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## Kvoigt (Mar 12, 2012)

so sphag moss is almost all boiled...sux tho cause i dont have any HUGE pots so it took 7 of the biggest one i had just to boil sonnes moss.... i cant bring it upstairs till i boil krakens moss and get all the old substrate out and both torts and enclosures scrubbed....crap im gna be up all night again only this is for my "other" kids this time lol



wellington said:


> FYI for the future. Coir can be found much cheaper on the Internet. Many different places. Just have to surf the net for the cheapest. Good luck to you and your torts, bad luck to your bugs
> Sounds like you have a plan



everything ive found if its cheap the shipping is not..... im going to try with the peat moss again this time im going to pour boiling water over it all (just incase). wich will also take freaking for ever LOL i need to borrow some pots and pans lol


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## StudentoftheReptile (Mar 13, 2012)

Kvoigt said:


> wellington said:
> 
> 
> > FYI for the future. Coir can be found much cheaper on the Internet. Many different places. Just have to surf the net for the cheapest. Good luck to you and your torts, bad luck to your bugs
> ...



I got mine on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003DQPS5U/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

Of course, I bought something else to get the free shipping, but it was still cheaper than just buying the single bricks at the pet store.


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## EricIvins (Mar 13, 2012)

What you're seeing are Springtails and other tiny Insects that are all part of a bio-active substrate........These are perfectly normal and natural, and help break down waste so your substrate doesn't sour.......So get rid of them and make your life harder, or keep them and make things easier on yourself.......Think of a biological filter......

I have never seen a Mite on a Tortoise, only Ticks........There is no need to boil, bake, or otherwise treat a substrate......Putting something combustable in an oven doesn't make any sense to begin with......


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 13, 2012)

StudentoftheReptile said:


> Kvoigt said:
> 
> 
> > wellington said:
> ...







EricIvins said:


> What you're seeing are Springtails and other tiny Insects that are all part of a bio-active substrate........These are perfectly normal and natural, and help break down waste so your substrate doesn't sour.......So get rid of them and make your life harder, or keep them and make things easier on yourself.......Think of a biological filter......
> 
> I have never seen a Mite on a Tortoise, only Ticks........There is no need to boil, bake, or otherwise treat a substrate......Putting something combustable in an oven doesn't make any sense to begin with......



Do you have a pic of the insects you are talking about so he knows if they are the same type he's talking about? or NM we can just google images. I know every reptile I've had in the past has had what he's mentioned but IDK if they are called mites and he doesn't know either so it's just a guess they are mites cuz they probably look like em but smaller. I just looked at the images on google and that's def not what I've seen on my reptiles in the past and I don't think that's what's on his either...We have tiny spider mites that attack our plants and they travel through the air, IDK how the ones he's mentioned travel but I've seen them in my green anoles in the past and on birds.


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## Kvoigt (Mar 13, 2012)

MORTYtheTORTY said:


> StudentoftheReptile said:
> 
> 
> > Kvoigt said:
> ...








i dont have any pics.. all i know is the babys are white and the adults are not (hubby said the kinda looked like fleas but smaller) ....they were all over my torts and thats y im cleaning it all out ...i dont minds bugs that stay in the dirt and off my torts like gnats and stuff like that...i duno what these are i just assumed they were mites as they look like them to me....its gna make me feel better to change it all out....


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 13, 2012)

then they very well could be springtails..I know you don't have pics kvoigt but you should google it and look at the images and then get back with us. They could be aphids too...if they look like fleas then I don't think that's the same thing I'm talking about as the ones I've seen in the past aren't that fast moving and do look like tiny tiny mites that are brown, red, and black in color.


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## StudentoftheReptile (Mar 13, 2012)

The only mites I have ever seen on a reptile are the common *snake mite* (little black beads under the scales or crawling on snakes): http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/burm_with_mites.jpg
...and the *red mite* (seen mostly on lizards, and occasionally on snakes): http://cdn1.arkive.org/media/62/62C...-with-a-mass-of-red-mites-behind-its-head.jpg

I have never seen a mite on a tortoise, but my experience with tortoises has been limited. I have seen ticks and leeches on turtles.
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But yeah, if you're using cypress mulch, or coconut coir, some other naturalish bedding, springtails could be what you have. They are very tiny, smaller than fleas, and a light-tan/brown color. They feed on dead vegetation debris and are completely harmless to reptiles. If you leave uneaten food in the enclosure for too long, you may seem them more often.


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 13, 2012)

well then I'm glad I won't have to deal with little pests like that! Those little mites are hard to get rid of without antibiotics or some sort of over the counter product specifically made for them but DAWN has worked many wonders for numerous occasions but I hope that it's ok to use on torts =/ Someone mentioned it was for snakes so I hope it's ok for torts.


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## Kvoigt (Mar 13, 2012)

MORTYtheTORTY said:


> well then I'm glad I won't have to deal with little pests like that! Those little mites are hard to get rid of without antibiotics or some sort of over the counter product specifically made for them but DAWN has worked many wonders for numerous occasions but I hope that it's ok to use on torts =/ Someone mentioned it was for snakes so I hope it's ok for torts.





i dont think its spring tails and look alot smaller than the pic of the mite shown above.....but again i could be wrong..they would not bother me if they wernt on my torts..that bugs me rolleyes so ive already cleaned out sonnes table and krakens is gna happen in a few mins.... they are on newspaper(kraken is in a seperate box inside sonnes tort table) till i get all the old substrate out and new in... i hope they are just the springtails but im just not sure so thats y im cleaning everything..i would hate to be out of town for 4 days and come back to a really ill tort from a bug infestation i could have handled(like im doing now)...better be safe than sorry. if i wasnt leaving town n had more time to research n stuff i might have just left it till i figured out more....


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## StudentoftheReptile (Mar 13, 2012)

Be glad its not baby roaches.


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## Kvoigt (Mar 13, 2012)

ok so ive been researching pictures and reading a ton and what i have come up with is.. i have something(springtails i duno) AND mites... the springtails im sure came from the dirt i got from outside a few weeks ago and the little white bugs are def mites.... im sure from the moss i ordered there was to high of a concentration for them to just be from taking them outside the last week or so.... i found a pic that is almost exactly what it looks like...


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## MORTYtheTORTY (Mar 13, 2012)

eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! That's gross...hope the dawn worked!


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## EricIvins (Mar 13, 2012)

Why would a blood sucking mite come in on moss? It just doesn't work that way........Ticks are different, but Mites die in a relatively short time period if they cannot feed........

I've had many Tortoises come and go - And not one have had Mites........Springtails are white and they run fast, along with the many other little insects you get on any other substrate except for newspaper........Point blank, an Ectothermic mite will pop red, and will be double the size of the period at the end of this sentence........


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## Kvoigt (Mar 13, 2012)

...i dont know if they are springtails... they were sooooo tiny like 5-10 would fit in---->(.) that little period...and the bigger ones didnt look quite like the pics they were more shiny..... i dont know ....im torn if i really clean out krakens tort table completly or just leave it...i dont really have the time to clean it all out but will pull n all nighter again if i have to....like i said i didnt think springtails would be all over the torts.... but if this is just springtails i dont want to go through allllll the work to scrub 50lbs of big rocks and getting all the substrate out and scrubbing it all down resoaking new peat moss to be moist and then redecorating.... i havnt even packed for gonig out of town yet....i guess they were a little longer looking than the pic i posted but they were soooo small i cldnt tell and yes they are kinda fast


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## Kvoigt (Mar 13, 2012)

i decided not to clean out krakens substrate and just leave it and watch it for the next cple weeks after we get back to town...i guess u guys are right there is no way they could really be mites...not to mention they seem more like the springtails in description.. so thanks every1 for the tips and words of advice i guess im just a over reactive tort parent! lol


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