MITES!?!

Status
Not open for further replies.

Kvoigt

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2011
Messages
356
Location (City and/or State)
South Dakota
ok so i picked up kraken last night and saw a bunch of teeny tiny lil mites or lice or sumthin........ i dont know if they are bothering him or not BUT i checked on sonne and saw a cple on him and his eyes were red and verry irritated....i duno what to do i just found out i have to go out of town for like 4 days on thursday and will be bringing kraken with me so i can keep good care of him but my mother inlaw is going to feed and turn sonnes liights on and off for me but she wont touch him to soak him :/ so i will just soak him real good b4 i leave.... ok but what do i do about the mites? ive never had any other bug problem other than gnats... but these are a lil creepy..... the only thing i can think of is they got em from being out side b/c they are not housed together and they both have them and ive been bringen it em everyday.....

what do i do!? i just looked again and they are not all white some are darker...they are everywhere.... all over there shells i cant see em in the substrate...i can see a few gnats in the substrate ...im leaving town in a couple days..i cant leave him like that for 4 days...at least kraken will be with me a and i can spray him off all the time.... crap if its not one thing its another.....like no friggen joke...
 

Kvoigt

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2011
Messages
356
Location (City and/or State)
South Dakota
ANYONE!? i dont know what to do..ive nevet had n animal with mites not even a cat..... WTH!!! are they really bad? are they gna make em sick? is this y sonnes eyes were red and angry? do i need to take everything out n clean it ? will that even help? crap... its stuff like this that makes me not want to bring them outside... i know that were they must have gotten em....the birds here cary them thick and its been nice out so im sure they are all over the grass...

this is really not what i need to be dealing with right now...ive got sooooo much going on ...this sux, even worse i dnt know what to do about it?
 

wellington

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Joined
Sep 6, 2011
Messages
49,655
Location (City and/or State)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
What kind of substrate are you using? The best I can tell you is to either get new substrate, or bake the old substrate to kill the bugs.
I use coir. It does get some kind of small creepy crawly bugs in it, however I have never seen them on my tort. Hang on more will help out.
 

MORTYtheTORTY

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Messages
442
Location (City and/or State)
Cali
There can be over the counter meds for him...I know they sell stuff for birds that are over the counter and they make sprays. Go to your pet store and see if they carry it. I never had to deal with this so I can't give you any confirmed answers but google would help and a pet store. If all else fails then the only thing I can say is Vet...those little blood suckers will eventually make him sick and they will not go away on their own, not even with a bath! I had them all over my green anoles when I was a teen.
 

SulcataSquirt

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jun 13, 2011
Messages
878
Location (City and/or State)
Missouri
I would clean the tank and replaces the substrate if they are everywhere. Id give your guys a nice long bath and keep putting water over him to get them all off, then replace water and repeat until you see their all off, when ever i bring my tort outside I always bath him in his tub before putting him back n his enclosure, for this reason.
 

Kvoigt

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2011
Messages
356
Location (City and/or State)
South Dakota
ok so both torts have them and in one i have sphag peat moss mixed with plain dirt. the other has cypress mulch n coco coir...ive always seen lil black gnats that crawl in the dirt and fly around.... but these are wayyyyyy different i just cam from checking on them and didnt even see one bug on them but this AM they still had a bunch all over there shells... i also was digging around more in there and i noticed that the grass patch dirt is loaded with them little suckers...... i dont have any pet stores near me but on thursday im going out of town/state n maybe i will have to make time to go to the pet store n check it out.... im waayyy bummed guys i have no clue what to do or even how to even handle this right now....

SulcataSquirt said:
I would clean the tank and replaces the substrate if they are everywhere. Id give your guys a nice long bath and keep putting water over him to get them all off, then replace water and repeat until you see their all off, when ever i bring my tort outside I always bath him in his tub before putting him back n his enclosure, for this reason.



i will deff be washing them off b4 bringin them back inside from now...i just never even thought.....
 

jesst

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2011
Messages
602
Location (City and/or State)
Florida
I got lots of bugs when I used mulch and soil. I changed it out to just coco coir, and now the only bugs I see is from the plantsin their enclosure. They are just little gnats but are still annoying. Good luck, but I would change the substrate to just coir and see what happens.
 

MORTYtheTORTY

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Messages
442
Location (City and/or State)
Cali
I'd listen to SUlcataSquirt and for now just keep washing them off and use a soft bristle brush or tootbrush and change the substrate right away and like Jesst said, use coir only! gluck and hope they go away on their own =/
For birds they have this liquid that you can buy on amazon and you put a drop (depending on their weight) in the water and/or spray it onto them but that's for birds, I have no clue what they do for reptiles but I'm pretty sure they have stuff because when I had my baby boa years back I had spray for him.
 

Kvoigt

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2011
Messages
356
Location (City and/or State)
South Dakota
jesst said:
I got lots of bugs when I used mulch and soil. I changed it out to just coco coir, and now the only bugs I see is from the plantsin their enclosure. They are just little gnats but are still annoying. Good luck, but I would change the substrate to just coir and see what happens.




the coco coir is just to much $$ for me to fill both a 4x5 table up 4 -6 inches and a 4x3 table up at least 3 inches..... thats y i got the sphag peat moss its pretty cheap for me and i had read about it being a lil bothersome to some torts so i mixed dirt it in with it..and as for the big tort table i used cypress mulch and a huge brick of coco coir that was given to me when i got him.. i dont want to use cypress mulch anymore i like it but i guess i like the live tree better :) soo if i replace it all it will be with sphag peat moss.. its what i can afford at the moment on short notice....
 

wellington

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Joined
Sep 6, 2011
Messages
49,655
Location (City and/or State)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
If you don't think you can get to the store to buy new stuff. Bake the old stuff or you can boil it. Either way should kill anything in it.
 

Kvoigt

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2011
Messages
356
Location (City and/or State)
South Dakota
wellington said:
If you don't think you can get to the store to buy new stuff. Bake the old stuff or you can boil it. Either way should kill anything in it.



lol i thought about it...but thats alot of work and dirt in my oven. it would take all night for me to bake everything.... lol and my kid is sick again and i have to plan this short notice trip into a different state....blah! im just gna go buy a new bag of sphag peat moss and clean out there homes....and replace with new.... but if they come right back i duno what the hell i will do... lol i dont do good with lice type stuff LOL i remember as a kid my sis got lice and i just threw everything away that she touched haha (dramatic 13 year old)..... but i doo keep spraying them to help with the pestering....

Kvoigt said:
wellington said:
If you don't think you can get to the store to buy new stuff. Bake the old stuff or you can boil it. Either way should kill anything in it.



lol i thought about it...but thats alot of work and dirt in my oven. it would take all night for me to bake everything.... lol and my kid is sick again and i have to plan this short notice trip into a different state....blah! im just gna go buy a new bag of sphag peat moss and clean out there homes....and replace with new.... but if they come right back i duno what the hell i will do... lol i dont do good with lice type stuff LOL i remember as a kid my sis got lice and i just threw everything away that she touched haha (dramatic 13 year old)..... but i doo keep spraying them to help with the pestering....




i might boil all the long sphag moss from all there hides ...if i were to bake it it would just crumble up into nothing...

one more thing...do i have to worry about these bugging me or my kids?
 

MORTYtheTORTY

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Messages
442
Location (City and/or State)
Cali
If it's the same mite type blood suckers you described then No don't worry about it! I know it's gross to look at and think they can in fact do something to you guys but they are harmless to humans. =) Gluck and wish you have $$ set aside for your torty's next time for emergency. The 5 bricks I buy from Carolinapetsupply.com are $25 for 5 bricks and it expands quite alot <--I might be wrong but I'm sure they do free shipping on this. I used 2 Bricks for a 3 x 1.5 and it filled up to over 3 inches deep so when you do have time you should buy them in bulk and have extra of everything on hand =D Hope those suckers go away.
 

Kvoigt

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2011
Messages
356
Location (City and/or State)
South Dakota
MORTYtheTORTY said:
If it's the same mite type blood suckers you described then No don't worry about it! I know it's gross to look at and think they can in fact do something to you guys but they are harmless to humans. =) Gluck and wish you have $$ set aside for your torty's next time for emergency. The 5 bricks I buy from Carolinapetsupply.com are $25 for 5 bricks and it expands quite alot <--I might be wrong but I'm sure they do free shipping on this. I used 2 Bricks for a 3 x 1.5 and it filled up to over 3 inches deep so when you do have time you should buy them in bulk and have extra of everything on hand =D Hope those suckers go away.




the last brick i had was huge and costed 35$ my friend gave it to me with the tort... but it only filled good 1/3 of his table..so that would be 100$ just for one tort table and at least 70$ for the other t...thats if i can find free shipping....i have $$ saved for emergencys for them and a fast substrate change is not what im gna use it on...... would rather have $$ for somthin i cant manage around it...
 

MORTYtheTORTY

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Messages
442
Location (City and/or State)
Cali
IDK how big your brick was but the ones in the petstore are small for the price they ask but I've never ordered anywhere else to compare so If you want just check out that petsupplystore I provided the link above. It's under substrate/bedding and it's $25 for 5 bricks and free shipping in the USA 1 brick expands to 7-8 liters and I think 5 expand to 1.6 cubic feet.
 

Kvoigt

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2011
Messages
356
Location (City and/or State)
South Dakota
MORTYtheTORTY said:
IDK how big your brick was but the ones in the petstore are small for the price they ask but I've never ordered anywhere else to compare so If you want just check out that petsupplystore I provided the link above. It's under substrate/bedding and it's $25 for 5 bricks and free shipping in the USA 1 brick expands to 7-8 liters and I think 5 expand to 1.6 cubic feet.



wow... see i need like 4 cubic feet... just for the big tort table i can get 6 cubic feet of peat moss for 15$ and it will cover both tables ...
 

MORTYtheTORTY

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Messages
442
Location (City and/or State)
Cali
nicoleandrocky said:
I don't know much about mites, but i would switch to newspaper for a while, and follow this
http://www.anapsid.org/mites.html

RIGHT ON! I read it all and great info to keep on hand, should this happen to me in the future! You are right on the paper for a while and just many many soaks should get rid of it since there might not be meds for the torts but the cotton ball idea soaked in the med and dab on mites you see sounds better than dousing it maybe...

Kvoigt said:
MORTYtheTORTY said:
IDK how big your brick was but the ones in the petstore are small for the price they ask but I've never ordered anywhere else to compare so If you want just check out that petsupplystore I provided the link above. It's under substrate/bedding and it's $25 for 5 bricks and free shipping in the USA 1 brick expands to 7-8 liters and I think 5 expand to 1.6 cubic feet.



wow... see i need like 4 cubic feet... just for the big tort table i can get 6 cubic feet of peat moss for 15$ and it will cover both tables ...

yah your best bet would be peat moss then and just keep switching it out within the 6 weeks until they are completely rid of mites...did you read that link from nicoleandrocky? Good link, not specifying if it's for torts but it's good because that's the same thing you are dealing with...this is all good to know because I haven't thought about this occuring so whenever I put the torts outside I will start soaking them before putting em back in their enclosure.
 

hlester22

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2012
Messages
183
Location (City and/or State)
Kentucky
I don't know about torts, but my husband says that when snakes get mites, to wash them with dawn dish soap. Maybe this will work for you.
 

MORTYtheTORTY

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Messages
442
Location (City and/or State)
Cali
hlester22 said:
I don't know about torts, but my husband says that when snakes get mites, to wash them with dawn dish soap. Maybe this will work for you.

WHAAAAAAAAAAT? It works for reptiles too?? I know it works great on animals (with fur I mean). I use this on my dogs and cat and they also used this on the animals during the oil spill. It has to be blue dawn dish soap though...wow I never thought of using it on a reptile. How long has he been doing it with the snake? That will for sure kill them instantly and washing it in the enclosure as well...Are you for sure it works on Tortoises? They have meds for mites for snakes and lizards but toxic to torts so IDK if they can share the same product quialities? It'd be awesome to know though, thanks for that and hope to hear a reply =D
 

hlester22

New Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2012
Messages
183
Location (City and/or State)
Kentucky
Like I said, I don't know about torts, but it works on snakes so I can only assume it would work for them too. I would be very careful and make sure to rinse it all off very well.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

New Posts

Top