Reptile & Amphibian Forums

There are these little white insects running around on my turtle. Will they do harm to him? How do I get rid of them?
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two oregon newts
one male eastern box turtle
ten gallon tropical fish tank

No, they won't. Box turtles spend most of their lives buried in one kind of dirt or another, all places that are crawling with tiny bugs.

Really? 'Cause boxturtlesite.info said "Remove any source of insects from the enclosure or keep the turtle indoors until the insects are eliminated."
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two oregon newts
one male eastern box turtle
ten gallon tropical fish tank

>>Really? 'Cause boxturtlesite.info said "Remove any source of insects from the enclosure or keep the turtle indoors until the insects are eliminated."

Thank you for reading my online book-however the totalty of the paragraph is not the same as you may think. I said:
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Insects or fly eggs on skin-
Remove chiggers, ticks or fly eggs with tweezers and clean the area with disinfectant and apply antibiotic ointment. Remove any source of insects from the enclosure or keep the turtle indoors until the insects are eliminated. Don’t keep food in the enclosure for more than an hour or two. Clean and protect any open wounds on the turtle quickly so flies won’t lay eggs on them. These flies are attracted to the smell of blood and flesh. If larvae or maggots are already under the skin and eating away at flesh, it is better to see a veterinarian about removing them as the wound may be larger than what is observed and shots may be necessary to combat secondary infections. Mites can be washed off with soapy water. Remove turtles to another location and place small pieces of pest strips that kill mites in the enclosure. Be sure to remove the strips before returning the turtles to the pen.
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The important thing here is I said "chiggers, ticks, fly eggs and mites". Not all insects are of a concern. Your job is to look at these white insects closely and decide if they are a mite, tick or fly larva. My guess, if you can see them with the naked eye and they are running around, that they are white insects called soil mealy bugs or other such insect harmless to turtles. But only you can tell for sure. Look at this page to see if one of the descriptions fit: http://www.optimara.com/doctoroptimara/60100-61004/61003-01.html

Mites are very small and usually you ony see their accumulated wastes.

It really depends on what the insects are. I suspect you might be seeing mites. They can cause problems and need to be eliminated. They can be red, white, black, grayish, are very tiny and tend to stay on the skin, but can be found anywhere on the turtle. They bite and can stress the animal out, cause problems with the eyes, nose, etc..........

If you are talking about moths, other small flying creatures, or baby sow bugs (rolly-pollies) no they won't hurt your turtle.

I would remove animal(s) from setup and let them soak while you get a temp setup for them. Remove ALL of the old substrate and anything else in the setup. There is a specific mite spray that you can use to clean off the hides and other articles in the tank (can't remember the name of it). Ken, Tess, or some one else will know though.

I would comepletely sterilize setup with bleach and let it sit for week or two, resterilize double check that the buggers are really gone before putting any substrate back in. I would keep turtles on newspaper until you are sure they are completely gone in a temp "hospital" setup! There are others on the forum that have dealt with this and may have some better ideas. Try to itdentify the insect you're talking about.

Mineral oil will kill mights on the skin. I have used this with a chuckwalla and found it very effective.

A friend of mine went to war with mites that were attacking her snake. I got this from her website: http://www.suncharmers.com/id15.html

> MITE INSPECTION , TEST, - I would recommend to everyone take a minute to do a mite inspection. MANY people say, I don't see mites, well I say CHECK anyway , this way......

Get a magnifing glass, some mineral oil, even olive oil, hold the collared in your palm tummy up, pour some oil on the white tummy, smear it around, get your magnifing glass and just observe a few minutes, see if you begin to notice any blackish/ tannish or reddish spots appearing from the scales. These will look tiny like "pepper" size.

** REPTILE RELIEF MITE SPRAY - I have used Reptile Relief, it seems quite safe and supposedly does not harm your lizard, only their BUGS ! Great for spraying on the animal , waiting and wiping off,
CONCLUSION : Not real effective in my opinion now that I went through a battle. A few drops of dish soap in warm water, washes off any SURFACE mites just as effectively. Seeing none on the surface does not mean the mites are gone, believe me.

** When I was sent a group of collareds that had mites and had to declare WAR, as I said, I found that reptile relief was not very effective. What is wonderful but a bit messy, extremely effective if yoru keeping only a small amount of lizards, was the old but STILL WORKS rub them down with oil.

** I used MINERAL OIL. Perfectly safe, and it suffocates the stinking mites. baby oil and cooking oil(olive oil) can be used as well. " DO NOT" put on so heavy it harms your lizards, Scrub off after a couple hours OR next day. Repeat as needed. Clean cage at the same time.

* If you have many , many lizards, or any free roamers this is not sufficent in killing them all either. And can be extremely OVERWHELMING to have to do this with 30 or more lizards. :0(
** The thing that makes it hard is that they (mites/ eggs ) are now in the space outside the tanks, walls, tables, curtains, so attack this problem from outside, inside and the lizards themselves of course.

**KILL Adults and Eggs IN TANKS, I have read and found out, " FIRST REMOVE LIZARDS" rubbing alcohol can be sprayed/used to clean the TANK, and bowls, and hides, it kills the adult mites and eggs that may be in the tank. Rinse clean with water/rag and let air out a little before returning the lizard/s
**Again PLEASE DO NOT spray rubbing alcohol on your lizards, just clean tank, and things with it, and keep lizard out and away from fumes for a few minutes.

** PROVENT A MITE - I used this on tanks/cages . Animals must be removed while spraying , I return them a few hours after. I believe directions say at least one hour .

USE with CARE This is good for the lizards furnished CAGE, take animal and water out, and PLEASE read intructions, as you must remove birds, frogs, feeder bugs, be careful of pet fish, and other precautions so DO NOT just spray, fumes can be harmful to other pets. ALSO any feeder bugs introduced into treated tank will die for atleast 2 weeks after, so lizard must be feed else where.

CONCLSION : I guess if you do not have many lizards this provent a mite, is fine, but I did not really find it as effective as others have said.
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**** I believe I wasted much time on products that really were not very effective, and sadly lost a few scaley pals that were weakened by these nasty creatures. These methods I mentioned above may be good for a person with a few lizards but not an entire collection or large reptile room/space.

I had to step up my treatment and erradication of these evil bloodsuckers that BORE right through your lizards skin and take over their eyes... and entire body if left to do so .

Box trutle site said something about pest strips. How would I remove all of the old substrate? It's the ground. Also, what would I let my turtle soak in? I don't think I'd want to remove my old substrate if i can just use pest strips. How do i know when their gone in my enclosure. And wouldn't putting bleach on hides and other things harm my turtle? If not, can I put it on wood? A couple more Q's: How would I clean my hospital tank? And I don't have a UVB light for a hospital tank so could I just put the hospital tank outside?
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two oregon newts
one male eastern box turtle
ten gallon tropical fish tank

Forgot a couple things. How do I keep mites away once I have rid them from my enclosure? And when using olive oil where do i rub it on the turle? And it mentions to only keep food in w/ my turlte for a couple hours. Does this always apply or only b/c there are mites?
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two oregon newts
one male eastern box turtle
ten gallon tropical fish tank

Sorry, but these produce a very potent airborne chemical.

You really need to try to identify these insects. Springtails are a common "small white bug" that can rise to huge proportions in turtle enclosures. They are perfectly harmless, and their numbers can vary with the seasons.

Or, they could be mites. Mites can be harmless or harmful, depending upon the species. Did you recently add fresh mulch to the pen? Wood mites are common.

Anyway, you really can't determine proper, or necessary, treatment until you know what you are dealing with. You can take the turtle and/or the bugs to your Vet., a local College/University, a pest control company, or even your State/County Agricultural extension.

Good luck, hope this helps.

If your turtles are in an outdoor enclosure, there's no way on earth you'll ever rid the soil of every little thing that crawls around in the dirt and on your turtle, and there's no need to. Even indoors, if you're using soil and leaf litter as a substrate (which you should be if you want to give your turtle what it likes), bugs happen. Box turtles have been living in the soil for millions of years without the benefit of human exterminators. People want to humanize their animals and want to apply the same principles of personal hygiene to them that they do to their children. It's silly. The bugs are part of their natural environment. If you kill one kind of bug, you may be allowing another kind to proliferate because the one that you killed feeds upon the other. Pet supply businesses love our human paranoia about keeping pets sanitized. They make a lot of money selling completely unnecessary products to gullible people who think their turtles are more fragile than they are. You'll drive yourself crazy and make pet stores rich and happy if you run out and buy a product every time you see something crawling on your turtle. A turtle that lives in a completely sanitized environment won't have the opportunity to develop the kind of immune system and resistance to infection/infestation that a wild turtle will. Common sense dictates that if your turtle isn't acting normally or is showing symptoms of some illness, then it's time to be concerned and look for a cause, but if you assume every other living thing in his immediate environment is going to harm him, you'll go batty and broke and he'll be stressed out by the constant disruption to his environment.

If you are using wood mulch as a substate I got a $100 they are haremless wood mites.
Change your substrate periodically will keep the numbers, unsightly, since I believe you stated it is an indoor set up, and move on, don't loose sleep over it, I wouldn't.
Personally I don't know why anybody would want to keep a box turtle indoors all year long, at least let it get some fresh air and sunlight in the spring,summer and fall and you will have no worries about bugs, they come and go as they please outdoors.
The last thing I would do is apply a chemical or medication without really being certain it is warranted, those are last resort options. A healthy low stressed animal given the proper conditions to strive will take care of itself.
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You got your regius's to the wall, man!
1.0 pastel Python regius
0.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
0.2 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.1 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.2 Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.1 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
1.1 heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus

No he's in a pen outside. I would never keep my turtles inside all year long.
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two oregon newts
one male eastern box turtle
ten gallon tropical fish tank

Could someone send me a picture of mites? I think they may be springtails.
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two oregon newts
one male eastern box turtle
ten gallon tropical fish tank

>>Could someone send me a picture of mites? I think they may be springtails.

I hope you read my message above. Mites are very small and can rarely been seem by eyes. The largest are spider mites and you can sometime see them on indoor plants.
There's a few pictures of mites on this website:
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/undergroundadventure/critters/critter_info.shtml#mite
Lots more info available on the Internet-search for "mites".