Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was cleaning out my BPs tank today, and saw something that I haven't encountered before. There were a few of these little white bugs, maybe 1/4 of an inch long. Sort of a skinny teardrop shaped body (with the point being the tail) and six legs. No idea what these things are or if I need to do anything special to get rid of them.

What I've done so far is I took everything out of the tank, sprayed the tank down with a reptile-safe cleaning spray, and washed it out, then sprayed down all the stuff in the tank and soaked it in hot water. Put in brand new bedding and everything.

Any ideas what these bugs are? Want to make sure they don't come back again, and what I can do to prevent it!

Thanks in advance.

how did the insects react to you bothering them, did they seem to jump, or did they crawl.
also does your bp spend alot of time soaking, can it curl up in its water dish?
if it is parisites, the snake will want to soak to remove the parisites,
however, if they seem to be jumping around, chances are they are colombela and are nothing to worry about

if you have acess to a magnifying glass, or microscope, you should have a look at one, a mite, or a tick will have a very small head, all legs very far foreward on the body, and a very large abdomen.

if they are white, they would be nymphs, adilt snake mites are black, with a very minute white spot on the bottom side.
if you have mites, they will be living under the scales, the easiest place to see them is under their chin, it will look like a tiny scale between the white scales.

The couple I saw went crawling across the tank when I was changing out the old substrate. I smooshed them as soon as I saw them. They are definitely way to big to be mites. One was about a quarter of an inch, the other maybe a third of an inch long.

I never see him soaking. His dish isn't quite big enough for him to fit in completely, but he certainly doesn't ever act like he wants to soak.

Could have been wood mites - what substrate are you using?
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

6.42.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi)
0.1.0 Bredls Python (Smurfette)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.0 frogs rescued from pool skimmer
0.0.1 Lizard of unknown origin

I usually use fir bark, but they were out at the store, so that time I was using cypress this last time. I was wondering if maybe there was something that came in the package. I'm back to the fir bark again, so if that's the problem, hopefully it won't repeat!

just a thought from experince we bought this stuff called forest floor from a big name pet store. we found lots of bugs in it. we took it back twice and went to aspen. hope this helps
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2.2.0 ball python (aragorn, frodo, arwen,`eowyn)
1.0.0 columbian boa (squiggles)
1.0.0 rat snake (alabastered)
0.1.0 corn snake (baby)
0.0.2 whites tree frog (trevor, kirmet)
0.0.5 pacific green tree frogs
3.2.0 cats (rockie, bs, brownie, lerrado, kole)
1.3.0 kids (dilyen, dakota, chyanne, sierra)
Brian n Chrissy
"snakes are kind of like potato chips, you cant have just one"