Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a mealworm breeding question........
Until reading your article I did not know that the beetles did not eat the oatmeal. But that is not my question, I noticed thousands of tiny whitish/orangish specks that move and like to travel in groups, so much that they come out of the container and buildup on the tops around the edges, it seem like they are mites or something.....any ideas?

ok, I was not so worried at first when I noticed the little "things" crawling around the mealworm/beetle container. Now I am worried, they are on everything.....all of my cages, containers, boxes everything, there are literally millions of them. I have started to wipe everything with bleach but it is not helping, they come right back.......any ideas?

Grain mites, I think. It's rather difficult to get rid of them completely, I had them infested my mealworm colony some years ago, I threw away the whole thing in the end

THANK YOU!
so if I get rid of the containers with oatmeal and wipe everything down with bleach/white vinegar will they eventually go away? I am not liking the idea of taking EVERYTHING outside and bleaching it AGAIN, I had to do this a month ago for a diff reason. Thank you again.

They are hard to rid of, and once you get hit - it's a paranoia that follows you for some time. I look at surfaces all the time now *laughs*! 3 weeks ago I bought a "Fluker's Cricket feed" bottle from a local Petco. I used it a few times before I realized It was INFESTED! (Petco refunded me for that, PLUS replaced my crickets). Now I'm checking containers in stores. Those pesky little mites!!! I've had to throw out a couple of feeder colonies in the past year - what a bother!

They grow quickly in high humidity. You're only option is probably going to be a good cleaning.

Someone told me that you can get something through your local feed store to help rid of them. I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. I've never used it. I always cleaned my surfaces with bleach water.

Good luck to you!