Mites?

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dgerndt

dgerndt

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Location
Ypsilanti, Michigan
As I was looking at my beautiful male Ghost mantis molting to L5 this morning, I noticed something moving on his deli cup. It was an extremely tiny (less than 1mm in length) white oval with antennae running around that sides of his container. I then looked at the rest of my mantids' houses, to see the same thing! I wanted to take pictures, but my camera's quality is nowhere near good enough to capture clear photos of something so small.

So I'm wondering... are these things mites from my fruit fly cultures? Are they bad for my mantids? How can I get rid of them?

I use paper towel as a substrate, sticks from my yard for climbing/hanging, and fake plants for decoration.

 
If they are mites from fruit fly cultures, then i would not worry to much. I have given up myself in trying to eradicate them. I have noticed the mites i have are interested in the medium. I have yet to notice any ill effects they may have done to any of my mantids.

 
You can try mite paper, but that never worked for me. You could also destroy all your cultures, and disinfect everything. You will have to get all new fllies though. You could place your new cultures on something surrounded by water. I don't think the mites can swim?

 
If they're from my fruit fly cultures, how come they're all over my mantis enclosures? I only have one mantis that still eats fruit flies.

 
You might just be noticing them now, as they have grown. I noticed tiny ones in a culture and was "OMG!" I found out that the tiny white ones pose little to no problems. As the culture aged the mites were more noticeable and in larger quantities. No problems noticed from it with culture or with the mantid. Just give the enclosures a good cleaning and maybe start a fresh culture and get rid of the old.

PS...Your chinese take out is on the way
biggrin.gif


 
They're absolutely harmless but can do devastating damage to fruit fly cultures, especially if you sell them! They take the moisture right out of the medium and leave the eggs all dried out so no more flies... :(

 
They could come from anywhere, they are in the air we breath, if in the cultures, you would see them, the mites also hitch rides on the flies, mantis, roaches, crickets, or in other words on anything they crawl on including you and I! They settle in clean excelsior, twigs and plants from outside, cloth, in potatoe and rice bags, or in other words, everywhere. So no need to freak out over them, if they are in the culture you would see them easily. I have a mite spray that is safe to spray every where except inside the mantis container, it also is one of the only sprays used to kill bed bugs! Hospitals use it to spray mattresses and pillows after a "guest patient" leaves. But really, unless you have hundreds, get some mite paper and use it.

 
Look into your fruit fly cultures for the same mites. If they're not there then they came in another way. They won't hurt anything with mantids and I can bet most keepers here have mites in their mantis enlcosures. I only had mite problems in FF's one time. But I have always had at least some in the mantis enlcosures.

 
+1 to what everyone said above. I freaked out too when I had mites. I placed the fruit fly containers in a bowl of hot water, of course that just killed the ones outside the culture. They are harmless to your mantids, and they didn't do any damage whatsoever to my cultures. I understand that you're grossed out though.

 
Well it's good to know that they're not going to be harmful to my pets. I guess I'll just get used to the mites, just like I got used to having massive amounts of fruit flies in my room. :lol: Maybe I'll get fresh cultures one day if the mites get out of hand.

Thanks everyone!

 
I freaked out too when I saw them crawling around in my mite cultures, their in my bedroom too so it makes it even scarier lol I did a little experiment with the fruit fly cultures. Once everything in the cultures seemed to be dead because of so many mites, I froze one and microwaved another. Microwaving them killed all the mites and I started the culture over successfully. I didn't want to waste media that I just set up not even more than a week ago. Bonus- it made the apt smell like rotting hot dogs for a few hours. Hubby wasn't too happy about that :lol:

 
Deby: If you are having a chronic problem with fruit flies flying all over, try this: Get a small container, about the size of a soda can and place a really well rotting piece of banana on the bottom and place this in the room where you are having the problem. The closer to a light,the better. Give it a few days to a day to get busy and take a peak inside. Then slowly approach it with a plastic lid that is large enough to completely cover your container and off to the freezer you go. If you want to use the freezer-stunned flies, then just shake them into the enclosure where the mantids are and presto- you have reclaimed some flies. If you are not wanting to feed them, then down the drain they go.

 
Thanks! In the summer (when the loose fruit flies become a problem), I put some vinegar in a wide-mouthed vase and then roll a piece of paper into a cone and stick the small end into the vase. The fruit flies crawl down the cone to get to the vinegar, but can't figure out how to get back out. In just a few hours, there are dozens of fruit flies trapped.

 

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