Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i bought a bag of "hardwood" mulch from home depot for my mojave rattlers tank..he has been living on it for 2 weeks now with no problems but this morning i noticed a bunch of small insects that look like fruit flies hopping around and climbing up the wood.i assume there was eggs of these things in the mulch and they just now hatched..has anyone had this problem before and know what these are? or how to get rid of them? will they harm the snake or breed and infest the whole cage? thanks for any help

Hard to tell what they are without pics, but a general rule of thumb is the only thing you want thriving in your snake tank is...your snake. I would recommend removing and soaking the snake (just in case they are parasitic), and either completely replacing the substrate, or baking it for an hour in the oven to kill any traces of the foreign invaders...if you replace the substrate entirely, bake it BEFORE you fill the cage with it...also, make sure to thoroughly clean the cage with a 5% bleach solution. Hope this helps.

ok thanks..i am thinking its the substrate thats causeing this so i am planning on changing the substrate to sand mixed with gravel to make a more desert look and lower humidity which should detour the flies..will this major change in habitat from mulch to sand affect the snake in a negitive way? thanks

Sounds as though you acquired a bag of wood chips infesetd with wood mites. I have had the same problem before, especially with aspen.
I normally toss the bag of wood and enclosure substrate, strip the enclosure and sterlize everything. Like everyone else, I only want the resident specimen residing within the enclosure.

The change shouldn't affect your snake, they are often found naturally in desert enviornment. Just make sure to be careful it doesn't ingest any sand particles as this *can* cause impactions, which can be fatal. This is most important during feeding time...if aesthetics aren't that important to you, i find newspaper to be the easiest substrate for most snake species...easy to clean and replace as needed,plus it's very easy to see little invaders running around!

Pretty safe bet they are spring tails. They would be harmless to your snake.