Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Today, after feeding and handling my leo for a bit I was looking around his tank, and noticed two very very small grayish bugs crawling about. I promptly killed them of course. Now I can only assume these are mites, but the thing is.. even under close inspection I've never seen a single mite on my leo. Should I be concerned about an impending infestation? Also, what can I do to prevent and/or treat this? Thanks for any info.

Hi, yes just clean your tank and all other accessories in it with a 1part bleach to 10part water and let dry then rinse with boiling water and allow to dry by air again.Have u got anything in ur tank you have taken from outside like a rock or something???I had a mite prob in my 80 gallon anole enclosure i took 2 huge branches from outside checked them and all seemed fine.Bout a month later after studying very hard i realized there were mites so i threw away everything and did wat i said with my plastic plants and all is fine now.Good Luck with it let us know how u got on.Gilbery007

Nope, haven't taken anything from outside.. I still don't know where these mites could have come from.. I've only seen 2. This seems like it would take a little while to get through. I'm trying to think what would be a place I could store him, where it would cause the least ammount of stress. I had a deli cup I put him in last time I cleaned his cage, but he's gotten significantly bigger since then. He just hit a growth spurt.

Mites are not commonly encountered with leos. Get a magnifying glass and make sure that is what they are. Also take some time to watch your leo for signs of mites crawling on him. Then do a thorough physical inspection (look in the ears, the corners of the mouth, behind the legs and in the vent). There are many many types of mites and very few actually parasitize reptiles (those found on dead wood etc are usually harmless).

If you come to the conclusion that he is infected, the bellow method worked for my alligator lizards and is copied from a post I wrote in that forum.

At the bottom is a pic of Red, I used the bellow to effectively end her mite infestation. She's been mite free for over a year now.

Hope this helps!
Alice

Mites:

This problem needs to be addressed ASAP as your lizard's life is at stake. If your lizard is healthy / of good body weight you should do the following immediately.

Set up a treatment tank. I've used the large critter keepers with the tall sides in the past. Ring the upper inside with vasaline (this will keep mites off the lid so you'll have less to disinfect). This tank should be furnished with something disposable like paper towels and an easy to clean water dish. Everyday all furnishings (paper towels) should be thrown out and the water dish and tank should be cleaned with a 10% bleach solution. This will prevent the mites from continueing to multiply.

Your lizard should be soaked for 15 minutes a day in lukewarm water, this will wash off many of the mites. Remove any mites remaining at the end of the bath by hand (check behind the limbs, in the vent, in the ears, and in the corners of the mouth). This treatment alone should erradicate the mites within about 2 weeks. I'd recommend continueing in the quarentine tank for an additional week after you have had a few miteless baths just to make sure the mites are totally gone.

An additional treatment consists of applying a layer of olive or vegtable oil to the lizard after the bath to suffocate the mites. Care should be aken to keep the oil out of the nostrils and eyes. I haven't personally used this method, but others here have with success.

Because of the extensive handlng involved in erradicating the mites your lizard may become somewhat stressed and refuse to eat. If he has good body weight he should be able to tough it out. If he doesn't set him up in the treatment tank, remove the furnishings daily etc and wait till he's gained some weight before starting the baths.

If your lizard has had contact with any cage furnishings: bake wood and rocks in the oven at 250 to disinfect them, everything else including the tank should be disinfected with the 10% bleach solution or thrown out.

Note: Each female mite is capable of laying hundreds of eggs. In a captive situation all the baby mites will then move to your lizard to feed. If the mites are not controlled your lizard will die of blood loss. Additionally, many of the commercially available insecticides available for use in controlling reptile mites were formulated for snakes and are not safe to use on small lizards (almost none are tolerated by geckos); that is why I recommend the above.

As I said above, I haven't seen any traces of these bugs crawling on my leo at all. Tomorrow I will do a thorough inspection of all his crevices. Also, I am not entirely sure these bugs are mites, even with a magnifying glass, how could I tell? I'd need to find one, as I've only seen 2 in all of his enclousure. Like I said they are sort of grayish in color, and very very tiny. From what I see their bodies are more oblong than round. Thanks for the info.

If you can check if they have 6, or 8 legs. 8=mites 6=insects
-----
1.2.1 Leopard Geks
2 White's Treefrogs
2.1 Fire Bellied Toads
0.0.2 Red Eared Sliders
Fish:
0.2 Parrot Cichlids
1 Upside Down Catfish
0.0.2 Bullhead Catfish
1 Geophagus jurupari
1 Fire Barbs
0.0.4 Blue Gouramis
Goldfish
0.0.1 Colombian Catfish

Adult mites will have 8 legs. They will also have only one body segment (they look a bit like mini ticks). Spiders will have two body segments and insects have 3 body segments (and only 6 legs).

Lizard mites are often bright red.

The bellow is a description of snake mites which can also infect lizards copied from : http://www.snakebreeder.co.uk/html/mites.html
Snake mites have a short life span, normally in the region of 1 - 2 months. Hatchling mites are whitish in colour and are so small they can not be seen easily with the naked eye. In adults the females grow larger than the males and are about 0.5mm in size. Adult mites are black with a light patch on their back. When full of food ( the blood of your pet ) they are a dark red colour.

It takes some time for an infestation to build up to dangerous levels so take your time. Find one and make an ID. After all, you wouldn't want to put yourself and your leo through all that for a few "bugs" that happened to wander in. If your leo hasn't had contact with other potentially infected snakes and lizards it's probably a false alarm.

I've occaisionally had little white mites in some of my tanks associated with potted plants etc. These are harmless. If parasitic mites are present you should be able to find some on your leo as they don't have many scales that a mite could squeeze under without being noticed.

-Alice

Okay, worry got the better of me and I just gave my leo a check up. I looked everywhere, including in the ears, corner of the mouth, behind each limb and the vent. No sign of anything at all crawling on him. I looked in his little coconut hide, and found 2 crawling around the inner wooden walls. They are definately whitish in color and have long bodies. I have no magnifying glass on hand so I couldn't see how many legs they have as they are very small, but not so small as to be near microscopic.

Mites tend to look pretty round, so you can probably eliminate them.
-Alice