So yesterday was a semi-success. After the treatment of a bath, sterilized enclosure, and spraying with 'reptile relief', I found a lot of dead mites, but there were still some live ones. Today I stepped it up a notch.
One big problem is that I can't find a place that will ship prevent-a-mite to NY. I think with a little work it won't really matter though. Today I re-sterilized the enclosure using a mixture of water and a little bit of bleach, and then rinsing and re-rinsing until the bleach is all gone. I put new paper towels in and new cardboard hidespots, and I'm putting a different water dish in until his is completely cleaned.
I put the little guy in a container with some water in it for about 30 minutes (while I was cleaning the tank), and then I added a little more warm water with a little bit of dish-soap to get rid of the airbubbles under the snake's scales that could be keeping some mites from drowning. I set up a second rubbermaid container that had a towel in the bottom that I sprayed down with some reptile-relief. I quickly put the snake in the container on the towel, and then took a wash cloth that was also sprayed heavily with 'reptile-relief' on top of the snake's body so that as he slithered out from under it, it wiped the spray on him. For extra coverage, I also sprayed some more the spray on him and some of the things in his tank. I don't see a single mite on him or in the cage, but I will have to wait a while and then check again. I assume it might take another try or two, but I feel like I'm making great progress.
In other news, I'm cage-shopping for Steve! He's just in a 10 gallon tank right now (he's still a baby...only about 18" long), and I'm looking to get something ready for him when he gets a little bigger. Right now I'm really considering getting a cage made by boamaster.com They are great looking cages, very affordable, and as much as I like building cages, much easier to assemble. I think I want to get him the '30" arboreal cage" (dimensions are 30" long, 20.5" deep, and 17.5" tall). At first I was looking at the bigger model (the '4 foot boa cage'), but I don't think I have space for another 4' cage (already have 3 - 4x2x2 cages stacked up in my room), and I think it would be overkill for a single ball python.
Thanks so much for all the help so far. I would have no idea what to do about the mites otherwise. If this doesn't work, I'm going to probably get some NIX and make a good diluted mixture.
