Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Whats this all about! I'g going mad here....

Her cage is very clean, with the exception of some CAstings going unnoticed for a couple of days, but were talkin about a well ventelated vision cage....

I was cleaning her cage yesterday and thought I would wash her water dish with soap and water. After I put everything back in her cage, I introduced the snake again and she immediately found a place to relax. Hour later, I see her soaking in that very water dish...but something almost slipped my eye. It appeared to be very small white larva, with a *slightly* melon-ish green tint to them. There may have been 30 in the water dish, just floating around and some hopping randomly. That was last night at 11 pm, so I washed the water dish with extremely hot water and antibacterial soap...and put the dish back in.

To my utter suprise a half hour later, the water dish was re-populated with the same white larvae...but that was right aroung bedtime so I did nothing about it.

Now its the morning and they are still sitting there. I plan to freeze all of the cage apparell right now and bake all of her substrate...along with re-cleaning the cage and spraying provent- a-mite in her enclosure. This situation really does beg a question or two...

1) What kind of larvae do you think this is? Has anyone else seen this?
2) Where could it possibly come from? I always felt my cleaning abilities to be high up there..
3) Would you consider these things harmful for a pythons environment? Regardless, they will be exterminated but I certainly wonder about there potency...

Thanks in advance,

Best,
John

these are the possibilities. the larvae come from eggs deposited by flies, or from parasite eggs inside the snakes body. if you clean the cage well, and dont see any flies around, or any of those worms on the ouside of the cage (meaning theyre crawling in) then they are almost definately coming from inside the snakes body. so now, you collect a few, bring them to a vet, or someone who is on that wavelength and find out what they are for sure. then chances are if someone can id them, they will have the best advice for treating them that you will be able to find. good luck,
-doug
ps. i would definately get that snake in a different room than any others, clean EVERYTHING with something strond like rocal or bleach, then bring all the other snake back into the room after you have aired all the chemical vapor out. make sure that everything is cleaned or theres no point in cleaning anything at all.

Maybe take in a fresh poo too to see if theres anything in it as well, your already making the trip.