Spring tails or mites?

[Nubbin2023]

Hi I haven’t been on here for awhile nubbin is getting so big! I’ve noticed some whiteish bugs of varying sizes in his enclosure and on his shell recently, I haven’t notice any drastic changes from his habits but notice them around his food and in his food bowls. They don’t seem to be bothering him but I just want to be sure any help is great. First is a picture of the bug and another just a cute one of Nub

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

It’s impossible to tell on the photo unfortunately, but they sound like it could be springtails, have you noticed them jump?
Don’t suppose you’d mind sharing a photo of your full set up?

 

[Nubbin2023]

It’s impossible to tell on the photo unfortunately, but they sound like it could be springtails, have you noticed them jump?
Don’t suppose you’d mind sharing a photo of your full set up?

It seems like some of them jump and others don’t, unfortunately I don’t have a pic of his most recent set up but I have him in a 40gal tank with 2 uv bulbs on the warm side to keep it about 95-100° during the day also a sunlight bulb and a ceramic heat lamp at night, I use a mat on the bottom of the tank and use coconut bark as the substrate, I have a few water bowls and a terracotta food bowl, I have 2 hides one on the warm and one on the cool side. I have a humidifier in that I use a few times a week and have the humidity around 70-80 when it is on I get nervous to leave it on all the time because I’m afraid to make it too wet and give him a respiratory infection. Sorry for the lack of picture hopefully the description helps.

 

[Tom]

Hi I haven’t been on here for awhile nubbin is getting so big! I’ve noticed some whiteish bugs of varying sizes in his enclosure and on his shell recently, I haven’t notice any drastic changes from his habits but notice them around his food and in his food bowls. They don’t seem to be bothering him but I just want to be sure any help is great. First is a picture of the bug and another just a cute one of Nub

View attachment 379255View attachment 379256

What you have there are called springtails. They are harmless detrivores and they move into our enclosures from the surrounding environment because it is a favorable place for them. They clean up the waste in the tank. Mites are rare in tortoises, and I've only ever heard of them happening in Florida.

Your environment for your tortoise is not set up correctly. You really need to make some changes ASAP. The tortoise is pyramiding heavily, and irreparable damage is done every day that goes by in these conditions.

They only need one UV bulb and it should be an HO tube. It should only be on for a few hours mid day. Your basking bulb and ambient light should be on for 12-13 hours a day, and it needs to be dark at night, but still warm.

Humidifiers should not be blowing directly into a tortoise enclosure. Maintain humidity by using a large closed chamber.

Finally a 40 gallon tank is far too small for a tortoise this size. You need something much larger and it should be a closed chamber.

All of this and more is explained here:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

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The Best Way To Raise A Sulcata, Leopard, Or Star Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. Babies hatch during the...

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[Littleredfootbigredheart]

It seems like some of them jump and others don’t, unfortunately I don’t have a pic of his most recent set up but I have him in a 40gal tank with 2 uv bulbs on the warm side to keep it about 95-100° during the day also a sunlight bulb and a ceramic heat lamp at night, I use a mat on the bottom of the tank and use coconut bark as the substrate, I have a few water bowls and a terracotta food bowl, I have 2 hides one on the warm and one on the cool side. I have a humidifier in that I use a few times a week and have the humidity around 70-80 when it is on I get nervous to leave it on all the time because I’m afraid to make it too wet and give him a respiratory infection. Sorry for the lack of picture hopefully the description helps.

Thank you for the reply, they definitely sound like springtails so I wouldn’t worry about those.

As Tom has mentioned, the environment does need changing, 40 gal is definitely too small, only one uv bulb is needed and it should be a tube fluorescent bulb on a 4 hour timer, a incandescent floodlight for the basking bulb on 12 hours, and the ceramic for night heat so it’s never lower than 80 anywhere, best substrate option is orchid bark or forest floor. Humidifiers aren’t a good idea in general.

I think you’ll hopefully find this thread I made useful to look through, it goes over the right kind of equipment, correct levels, appropriately maintaining your humidity etc plus lots of visual examples for everything

Leopard/sulcata starter

Hello there! In this thread I’m going to include some information below on how I’d personally tackle an indoor starter set up for this guy until they’re bigger. Hopefully it helps give you some ideas! I know it looks a lot to go over, I like to make sure all bases are covered, I’m happy to...

tortoiseforum.org

This one is handy to avoid the wrong kind of bulbs, materials and such

Common keeping errors

Hello everyone! I’d been a long time lurker on this site long before joining just under a year ago now, over that time I’ve seen these husbandry issues come up time and time again, sometimes with dire consequences☹️ I thought this thread might serve as a good visual guide for these common...

tortoiseforum.org

Hope this helps!

 

[Nubbin2023]

Thank you for the reply, they definitely sound like springtails so I wouldn’t worry about those.

As Tom has mentioned, the environment does need changing, 40 gal is definitely too small, only one uv bulb is needed and it should be a tube fluorescent bulb on a 4 hour timer, a incandescent floodlight for the basking bulb on 12 hours, and the ceramic for night heat so it’s never lower than 80 anywhere, best substrate option is orchid bark or forest floor. Humidifiers aren’t a good idea in general.

I think you’ll hopefully find this thread I made useful to look through, it goes over the right kind of equipment, correct levels, appropriately maintaining your humidity etc plus lots of visual examples for everything

Leopard/sulcata starter

Hello there! In this thread I’m going to include some information below on how I’d personally tackle an indoor starter set up for this guy until they’re bigger. Hopefully it helps give you some ideas! I know it looks a lot to go over, I like to make sure all bases are covered, I’m happy to...

tortoiseforum.org

This one is handy to avoid the wrong kind of bulbs, materials and such

Common keeping errors

Hello everyone! I’d been a long time lurker on this site long before joining just under a year ago now, over that time I’ve seen these husbandry issues come up time and time again, sometimes with dire consequences☹️ I thought this thread might serve as a good visual guide for these common...

tortoiseforum.org

Hope this helps!

All of this information is very helpful I’ll make habitat changes asap, I’ll get him in a bigger tank saving up for a bigger one. Thank you for all the info

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

All of this information is very helpful I’ll make habitat changes asap, I’ll get him in a bigger tank saving up for a bigger one. Thank you for all the info

No problem at all!