Reptile & Amphibian Forums

well my cali snake is in trouble he has the omg i just lol forgot well lol not ticks but something like that my mind went blank well its somethig bad lol he went from a 65 gallon tank to like a 10 gallon tank cause the 65 is infected with them there are like hundred of everything over there. just i need the medicine stuff for him before its too late. i didn't have any extra supplies for him except a log to put in his new temporary cage. got any suggestions what i could put in there that i would have in my house or something. he feel very unsafe right now just a lot and a bowl of water with newpaper under him . well i hope it likes it cause he is going to have to deal with it anyways i need to hurry and get that stuff for him i would hate to see my snake dead contact me at gregkastanes@Hotmail.com or shiibysweetdude@aol.com or shiiby_Sweet_Dude@yahoo.com all instant messangers and email addresses well thanks guys and hopefully this all works out

~!Greg!~

You can do this without any special medicine. The 10 is going to be infested just as quickly because the snake is carrying mite eggs. Throw out all the bedding. Mix up a 1/10 bleach solution and clean everything else with it really really well. The cage, fixtures, water dish, ect. Then rinse until you can't smell it and let dry. Then before you put the snake back in, give him a bath with a bit of very very mild soap and rinse him off very well, until you're sure there are no mites on him (make sure he doesn't drink it). This should either take care of the problem or get it under control until you can get an insecticide. But elbow grease can win the day with these things. If you have other snakes in the same room they probably already have mites...

Do what meretseger suggested and bleach the cage. Take the log out, use a paper towel tube or something disposable without alot of rough surfaces. Mites will infest the log and they are very hard to affect with poison when they can get into cracks and stuff. In fact I would suggest nothing but newspaper in the cage as long as the snake doesn't rub his nose he will be fine. And no water in the cage when there is poison you don't want the snake to drink poisoned water. Just every 3 or 4 days take him out and give him a drink.
Provent-A-Mite is an aeresol you spray in the cage that's supposed to be good. You can find their ad in Reptiles magazine.
One last thing mites complete a life cycle(hatching to egg laying) in about three days at 80 degrees so if the cage is warmer you can break their cycle faster.