ahhh help please!!!! (bugs)

[Blgreek08]

ok so im not sure what it is so idk where to post. but i pulled out my babies today and they had like little moving white dots on them. i think its some kind of bug or something but idk where it came from. what should i do? should i change the mulch and give them a bath. im kinda freaking out i dont want it to be anything that will hurt them or something.

 

[Tom]

RE: ahhh help please!!!!

First slow down. Next, go ahead and use some proper punctuation and capitol letters.

The little white bugs are harmless detrivores. They occur normally and naturally where ever there is food, warmth and a source of moisture. You can replace, bake or boil your substrate, but they will always come back.

 

[Blgreek08]

Thanks!

 

[TortoiseWorld]

These are wood mites and they are NOT harmless, they annoy your tortoises skin causing stress and the tortoise will rub their skin possible because they itch and this will develop abrasion marks or spots. I do not recommend baking the substrate because baking can cause toxic fumes that could harm humans. The best thing to do is to buy new substrate (I am assuming your using some sort of jungle mix, it's common wood mites eggs are present in a bag of new substrate from the manufacturer) then freeze it in your freezer for 24 hours, wood mite eggs can not survive this. Remove your tortoises and give them a good bath cleaning off all the mites on their skin, I like to run the bathtub spout luke warm and direct the water up in their leg and neck pockets very gently and then put them in a clean box while you clean out the enclosure. Carefully remove all the old substrate and put it in a garbage bag then with a mild warm bleach water and some mild soap wash out the whole enclosure wiping it all out with paper towels, you want to get all the mites and eggs out and it's hard to see them, throw out the paper towels in the same garbage bag, get the bag out the house, then rinse the enclosure thoroughly and dry it, then put in the new mite free substrate. You can put some antibiotic cream on their abrasion sores spots once a day with a Q-tip, the sores will vanish in 2 weeks. Always freeze substrate before putting it in your enclosure and wash anything other things.
You can do the same freezing treatment with the old substrate but it's not worth the hassle. Your tortoises will be very grateful to be mite free

 

[Levi the Leopard]

@ savethetortoise, how do you know what they have are wood mites and not the harmless springtails?

 

[TortoiseWorld]

ok so im not sure what it is so idk where to post. but i pulled out my babies today and they had like little moving white dots on them. i think its some kind of bug or something but idk where it came from. what should i do? should i change the mulch and give them a bath. im kinda freaking out i dont want it to be anything that will hurt them or something.

Sounds a lot like wood mites.
I had the same thing and the owner of my local reptile shop said they were wood mites. I would imagine any tiny insects crawling all over a tortoises skin would be stressful and irritating.

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Maybe the op should check out both and see which one they have.

I occasionally have springtails in my indoor enclosure. I have never seen them on the actual tortoise, and they are harmless.

 

[morloch]

I use melluca ,I think i spelled it correctly. Anyway, I mixed this with cypress ,, and I have no bugs. But I also just give it a good misting twice a day.

 

[tortoise007]

ok so im not sure what it is so idk where to post. but i pulled out my babies today and they had like little moving white dots on them. i think its some kind of bug or something but idk where it came from. what should i do? should i change the mulch and give them a bath. im kinda freaking out i dont want it to be anything that will hurt them or something.

Sounds a lot like wood mites.
I had the same thing and the owner of my local reptile shop said they were wood mites. I would imagine any tiny insects crawling all over a tortoises skin would be stressful and irritating.

just a word of advice: don't believe ANYTHING that comes out of someone at a reptile shop..... usually.....

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ok so im not sure what it is so idk where to post. but i pulled out my babies today and they had like little moving white dots on them. i think its some kind of bug or something but idk where it came from. what should i do? should i change the mulch and give them a bath. im kinda freaking out i dont want it to be anything that will hurt them or something.

Sounds a lot like wood mites.
I had the same thing and the owner of my local reptile shop said they were wood mites. I would imagine any tiny insects crawling all over a tortoises skin would be stressful and irritating.

just a word of advice: don't believe ANYTHING that comes out of someone at a reptile shop.... usually....

---

Sorry, didn't mean to post twice.

 

[TortoiseWorld]

It was the owner of the Chicago reptile house who told me it was wood mites, and he seemed pretty knowledgeable about insects in the substrate, and together with my own research I found that what he told me about the wood mites and how to get rid of them was correct. The baking comment was of my own discovery, I almost blacked out trying to bake jungle mix a few months ago, freezing is the way to go not baking.

Where ever we get our tortoise information from we should always test it with our own other research and compare it to what is workable.
Reptile shops, tortoise forums, exotic animal vets etc., all give good advice and all give poor advice, as with your own health we need to be proactive.

 

[Blgreek08]

thanks for all the advice everyone. sorry i never responded is been hectic around here. i got coco fiber bedding and froze it as well as the bark. im going to do a mixture of the two now that i got my hands on the fiber. i haven't seen any bugs since then so things are looking good.