Heeeeeelp (bugs in the substrate)

[sibi]

Since your first post about these little bugs, I now noticed that I have them too. It was never noticeable before, but when they started to swam all around and on my babies (it was never on them before or I would have noticed it) I removed my torts, gave them a sterilized bath, and cleaned out the whole enclosure. I hate bugs, and I hate it even more when they're all over my babies. These bugs jump too. At first I thought they were fleas, but these were way too small, and their jump was not that far. It didn't matter, I just eliminated them. Is this something common to all enclosure using coco coir? Or is it the organic soil? Please, anyone chime in with an answer. Thanks.

 

[L82lalaland]

I have found that if you freeze the coco bedding for 24 hours the bugs die. I normally do this right after I get it home from the store. Found this trick with bird food, that stuff is enfested and always needs to be frozen. Clean everything and start with new. Pain but works.

 

[Hauntmom]

I had them at one point too freezing the coco hair will work.

 

[Sonja215]

I found some bugs in my coco coir, had two bags & just poured it out into my tank. First we had the flying bugs, cleaned out the tank and tried the bricks instead of the bag. Then found the little crawling bugs, small yes, like flea size. Got tired of seeing them multiply, there were just so many if them it not only freaked my boyfriend out but I was getting pissed. Started reading on here about baking the bricks. That's what I've done the past few times I changed the substrate. I've baked bricks & bagged coir. I did have some mulch in there a month or so ago. But that had some stray food in it that molded.

For the coco coir, I set my oven to 350, wrapped the bricks in foil & baked about an hour. Stuff in a bag, I had two trays (6x9) and wrapped those up in foil, made sure it was tightly wrapped and the same, 1 hour.

No bugs. I would consider freezing, we just never have room.