Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just pulled out my rock and he has mites on him little black bugs.I sprayed the cage and the snake with reptile relief.also the bedding and his wooden stump that i just bought last week at
a local show.the person said they where fired in a kiln.
but i had no problems until then .any saggestion. please help
what is the fastest and best way to get rid of them.

best way really is provent-a-mite. my boa had mites when i got her and it worked like acharm. after i treated and sprayed the cage i removed eveything in the cage and replaced it with new, about 4 days later.

Start off by buying a product, Black Knight has always worked for me, but prevent a mite seems to have gotten peoples attention also. Clean the cage until everything is out, spray it down, make sure you get the corners from left to right and top to bottom. Change all beddings, I would switch to news paper, or maybe indented kraft paper, paper towels will work to help check and see if the mites are gone or not though, considering black shows up very well on white. Be sure to spray the snake down with the black knight, belly and back. I'm not sure on Prevent a Mite, but I'm sure you would have to do the same thing. If you have stuff like logs and whatnot in your cage, I would soak it for about a day, and then spray it down before you put it back in the cage. Hope that helps!

~Ben

Provent-a-Mite (PAM) is not to be sprayed on the animal at all... It is highly toxic. You spray the substrate till the inside of the cage fogs, then you let it air out... open up the room too. After everything has aired out for a while then u put in the water dish and snake. By the next day your snake is mite free, and the stuff lasts for 30 days. Its a wonderful product and I swear by it. The reptile relief works, just takes much longer and is more work intensive with the constant cage cleaning every 3 days.

As far as Black Knight goes, I heard that it is a great product as well, however it is very difficult to locate a vendor.
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Liz
0.1 normal ball python
1.0 100% het for albino ball python
0.1 colombian red tail boa
1.1 anery kenyan sand boas
1.0 normal burmese python
0.1 albino burmese python
1.1 okeetee corn snakes

I know I told everyone I was taking a leave, AND I AM, but having lurked for a few days I felt it necessary to speak up on this post. Black Knight has KILLED many snakes (and there is documented proof). This is NOT an approved product for reptiles....its composition, though effective to some degree, has not been proven to be a safe and effective method for eradicating mites (despite what some people profess). How do you actually know how much to spray? What concentration is effective? What effects does spraying this product directly on to a snake have? How much is too much? How little is too little? What does the manufacturer recommend?...I'll tell you, they DON'T because they are NOT recommending that this product be used for the treatment of snake mites. I also thought I would mention that it is against the law to recommend products that have not been approved for purposes other than what they are advertised to do; you could be setting yourself up for something you don't want to deal with. Those folks selling black knight for the purpose of treating reptiles are in deep, deep doo doo.

Instead, I would recommend a product that has been approved for the treatment of mites such as Pro Products Provent-A-Mite. There are a few other decent brands out there as well, one that is escaping my aging brain, that I have heard some real good things about.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
Lake Forest, IL

>>Start off by buying a product, Black Knight has always worked for me, but prevent a mite seems to have gotten peoples attention also. Clean the cage until everything is out, spray it down, make sure you get the corners from left to right and top to bottom. Change all beddings, I would switch to news paper, or maybe indented kraft paper, paper towels will work to help check and see if the mites are gone or not though, considering black shows up very well on white. Be sure to spray the snake down with the black knight, belly and back. I'm not sure on Prevent a Mite, but I'm sure you would have to do the same thing. If you have stuff like logs and whatnot in your cage, I would soak it for about a day, and then spray it down before you put it back in the cage. Hope that helps!
>>
>>~Ben
>>
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

Right on Rob. The reason black knight works is that it attacks the central nervous system of cock roaches (what it was intended to be used for). THus being said, do you really want to spray a nuerotoxin onto your snake or even allow the snake to be in the same environment. Provent-a-Mite is probably the best product out there and is designed for use against snake mites. Reptile relief also is good and safe for your snake. The underlying issue here is finding out how the snakes got the mites in the first place. I hate bedding and the like. Regardless of the type there is a possibility of it having mites. Wood of any kind is a perfect host for the laying of eggs and just because when the manufactures bag the product there is no mited doesn't necassarily mean that there is no eggs. I have opened several bags of repti-bark only to find that it is infested with mites. There really is no way to guarentee that a mite free substance such as reptibark is bug free. I recommend the use of newspaper for almost all occassions. I understand that museums and zoo's can not use newspaper. They have to have ascetically pleasing exhibits but in your home it is not necassary. Remove the chips and wooden objects and treat your snake and cage and you should remedy this problem. Todd

Thanks for everyones help .
i have one more question .Should i use the retile releif on the snake and provent o mite on the cage or just the provent o mite ?

Either is safe on the snake and the enclosure. The Reptile Relief will take maybe three applications before the mites are gone though. Just follow the instructions on the bottle.

Quig

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Spray Provent a mite in the cage, let it air out for about 5 minutes, put the animal back in the cage for a couple of hours, then remove the animal, clean the cage, wipe the animal off with warm soapy water and all will be good.

Nothing else works as good as Provent a mite........I don't care what anyone says!!!

take care,

Karl

Does anyone know what the active ingredient in the black night is?
I've never used it i was just wondering if its the same as prevent a mite

active ingredients

d-cis and trans 3phenoxybenzyl 1RS 3RS 1 RS 3SR)
3 (2methlprop-1-enyl) cyclopropanecarboxylate 1.998%

inert ingredient
phenotrin 98.002%
total.......100.00%

Copied verbatim from the can
Hope this helps some.