Tiny white bugs (mites?) w/ video

[edenofgarden]

My Russian Tortoise’s substrate has these microscopic white bugs. They are almost invisible to the naked eye, but with a magnifying glass or zoomed in on my phone camera, they can be seen. They are super fast. I’ve searched other posts and from what I’ve read, are they feeding off of the decaying food/compost in the topsoil/coconut coir? The substrate is a combination of topsoil and coco coir. Here is a video of what they look like. Note this was zoomed in 6x on my phone. I keep his enclosure as clean as I possibly can. I’m home all day and there is a camera in his enclosure, so I see when he’s finished eating. I clean out every last bit of food and remove everything. I clean up after him right after he poops and pees - he’s pretty consistent and has a routine.
These little bugs are even in areas of his enclosure where he rarely visits. His enclosure is large - 6’x4’ and over 7” of substrate deep. I’ve heard they’re harmless - is that true? ?

New video by Eden Garner

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[Mrs_Gal1981]

I recently asked this too. I just found them on my red foot while soaking. Not that many, I’ve seen probably 3-4 at once. I see them drop in the water when I soaking him and pour water on his shell. It’s hard to capture them in video/pic but I googled “white springtails” and they look exactly like that. Elongated like fire ants with visible white antennas. If it’s springtails (which I’m 99% sure mine are) they are supposed to be harmless and even beneficial to the enclosure, but I would make sure yours are too.

 

[jensem17]

Springtails! Congrats, you have a bioactive enclosure.

Their population will level off once they have consumed the newly available food sources.