Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone,

We've been on vacation for a few weeks, and I came home to find what appear to be mites on and around my blood python enclosure. My ball python, housed separately, seems clean of them.

My snakes have never had mites, so I don't quite know where they came from. I feed F/T rats to both snakes.

Anyway, there appear to be no mites on my snake (yet!), and what I see are tiny white dots about the size of the period on this sentence around and on the tank itself. They crawl, do not jump and have no wings. My blood isn't hanging out in her water dish either, but I'm presuming that will happen pretty soon.

Can anyone recommend an immediate treatment that's safe while I try to find a bottle of Provent-a-Mite in my area here? And, how best can I quarantine my other snake to prevent a second infestation in that tank? And, once I have Provent-a-Mite, what's the best way to use it effectively?

I know this sort of info has been posted endlessly, but I've never had mites so never really followed the posts with much interest.

Thanks a million for any and all thoughts!

Mites are not white, they are black. If it were mites they would be all over the snake. Most likely something from your substrate. If you want peace of mind, soak the snake in warm water for 45 minutes to an hour. Clean the enclosure with a strong bleach and water solution, rinse well. Use paper towels for substrate and see if the bugs appear again.

Don’t use a strong bleach solution , it is to hard to rinse out cleanly and has no more germ killing strength than a cap full to a gallon of water and at this strength its not so hard to rinse out and dose the same job !! David of DS Reptile Rescue

Thanks for your advice. These guys are definitely not black or colored. They're white, and after handling the snake for an hour this morning, I didn't notice a single one on me or my blood python. Even tonite, there isn't anything crawling on her.

I cleaned the substrate before we went on vacation (soapy water and baked in an oven), but maybe some leftover moisture in it caused some other critters to grow.

Thanks!