Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i saw a site that said if you had a mite catastrophe you could put one of those mite/tick collars in a box inside the aquarium therefore the mites would get killed and the snake wouldnt get too close to it,,,,is this true,,,if it does kill the snake,,can i know how?

thx

I've heard of people doing this. What they do is put the collar in something like a deli cup like the ones you use for snake shows with the holes punched in the. Leave the collar inside the deli cup and put it in the cage for 3 or 4 hours a day every day for a week or so. Same trick that you can use with Shell No-Pest Strips. I have heard of toxicity from over exposure with both of these products. In most cases, the symptoms go away after the product has been removed. If the time in the cage is insufficient, of course, then the treatment is ineffective.

The easiest and most effective treatment for mites is to prevent getting them in your collection in the first place. This means thorough inspections of any animals before you buy them and bring them home, quarantining new animals, and disinfecting any cage furniture that may harbor mites.

If you do get mites, the easiest and most effective way I know of to get rid of them is using a .1% Ivermectin spray (available from a vet) once a day for 5 days. Ivermectin is not particularly effective for ticks, though. In the event of a tick infestation, remove the ticks that you can see with tweezers, taking your time and pulling with steady pressure until it comes loose, treat the areas the ticks were removed from with a triple antibiotic ointment and use a product such as Trichlorfon spray, or perhaps one of the past strip or tick collar products. The main thing with ticks, though is manual removal and cage cleaning and disinfecting. Use a 10% Clorine Bleach solution for cage disinfecting.