ok, today I noticed that I have mites attacking my fruit fly cultures (and waxworm cultures, too). I'll obviously need to restart my culturing to rid myself of them (although it seems that the fruit flies stay enough ahead of the mites that it may not be an issue for a small while).
Now, my question is this...does anyone know what the actual species is of the mite that tends to attack fruit fly (and waxworm) cultures and what other pest species might they have an affinity for? The reason I'm asking is this...I've had a bad plant mite problem in one of my orchidariums (unrelated to the vivarium where I keep my frogs). I tried once to introduce some Phytoseilus persimilis mites to the orchids, yet they never seemed interested in eating the plant mites and thus disappeared within a few days without making a dent in the plant mite population.
What I'm hoping for is perhaps a mixed blessing...maybe, just maybe the predatories that are afflicting my cultures might be useful in controlling the plant mites that afflict my orchids.
I decided to place the most overrun culture (a waxworm culture) in my orchidarium to see what happens...still, if anyone can give me some hard data on these critters, I will know whether to hope (or not) that these will prove helpful.
---Prem
