Fruit Fly Mites?

[River Dane]

I was looking for maggots in my fruit fly (D. hydei) culture, and noticed small, round, white critters, scurrying about with legs. I was just wondering if anyone could recognize the species/genus and whether or not they posed a threat to the health of the flies or the spiders and mantids that will eat them? I got them only 3 days ago, and the person I ordered them from gave me 14 day returns.

Here is the video.

i was also wondering, if I separated the adults into a hot, dry container for several days, and moved them to a new culture, would it still have mites, or will they have all died? 

Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks!

—D.E.

 

[Tau874]

From my experience grain mites are inevitable when it comes to fruit flies - though I will say I tend to notice a lot more in purchased cultures.  

I’ve seen some interesting solutions - one included straining the flies to remove the mites.  Not sure how effective that is but you could try.

Best solution seems to be prevention.  Mites aren’t dangerous in small numbers: get some mite spray and spray the area around your fruit fly cultures to prevent spread.  Otherwise just remember to dispose of your cultures after 3-4 weeks to lower the risk of mites taking over the culture.  If a culture gets taken over, it’s best to kill everything inside to prevent spread.

 

[River Dane]

@Tau874 Thank you so much for the help! I’ll start a new culture in a few weeks, or if the mites start to overtake the fruit flies. This is my only culture, so spreading is not really a risk, and throwing it out is not an option.

As long as the mites aren’t posing a threat to the health of the flies, jumping spiders, and mantids, here not a problem.

Thank you!

 

[Krissim Klaw]

I've only had to deal with mites in my cultures once when getting an infested one from the store. What I did when it was time to start a new culture was let the fruit flies climb out (versus tapping them out which is more likely to also knock mites out) and and jump into a secondary container. I then tapped them around in that a bit hoping any mites that might also have gotten in would fall to the bottom of the container before letting the fruit flies once more crawl up and out, this time into the new culture. I did this the next few times I changed the culture and the mites were eliminated. You will also want to ideally keep the infested culture in a separate area from where you will place the new ones so the mites can't transfer that way. Some people like to set their cultures on mite paper, but I never bothered with the stuff.

 

[River Dane]

@Krissim Klaw Thank you so much for the advice! I’ll try this when I make a new culture. Should I go through those procedures around once a week, or just as soon as I start to notice mites?

 

[Krissim Klaw]

To be honest I didn't notice additional mites after doing it the first time, I just did it a couple more times to be safe. Once a week would be a bit much because you need to give your culture time to reproduce. Only thing I might do is as soon as your culture has its first bloom with new flies hatching go ahead and start a new one then versus waiting if you generally stretch things out more in between starting new ones.

The other big thing will be just make sure not to spread the mites to any larger enclosures if you have setups they might take off in. It is real easy to deal with them in something small like fruit fly cultures, but far more of a pain if say they spread to roach/cricket bins or other larger colonies/enclosure setups.