Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I discovered that my Uro enclosure's substrate was getting a a bit water-logged today. I suspect my fogger/mister has been pumping a bit too regularly. So In the process of removing the cage furniture, and scooping out the substrate, I discovered an over-abundance of extremely tiny insects. They were all over the bottom of all of the cork-bark, along the edges closest to the substrate (which at this point did have a small build-up of water at the bottom).

After scooping out most of the substrate, there was still some water on the bottom (just a cm or so), and I can see all of the buggers along the top of the surface, hopping around on it.

Now, when I say 'tiny' they are so small that I can not identify any body parts on them with the naked eye. They literally appear as dots to me. Are these in fact mites?

I've inspected my (currently) lone sikorae, and he appears to be free of whatever these insects are.

I'm not sure how I can remove the insects from the cage furniture. I was searching around and read some good reviews of this stuff:
http://www.pro-products.com/miteandtemp.html

I'm afraid to put any cage furniture back in until I know I can kill off all of whatever it is.

So am I correct in assuming these are mites, and procede with my plan of mass extermination, or is this something else?

-Matt

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they are probably wood lice?, or a simalar type bug. most mites would attack the gecko and as far as i know they are red. the little bugs are white and very tiny. i have them in alot of my tanks and i think that the baby phants eat them. i have not noticed that they bother anything, but it would be better to be safe than sorry.

hmmm I don't think woodlice is the right name ...

(from google image search)

But yes, they appear to be white (as far as I can tell).

I hope you are right that they won't harm the gecko!

-Matt
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whoops ... here's the image I meant to attach:

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One other thing I hadn't thought of.
I use latex gloves when I'm wrenching on my car. I store the glove box in the same closet as my reptile substrate.
I noticed when I opened the box a few days ago, there were tons of tiny insects crawling around on the gloves in the box. I can't help but think they are the same insect. I'm not sure if the insects came with the gloves, or if they were in my substrate bag, and crawled to the gloves. Perhaps they are feeding off the cornstarch on the gloves?

-Matt
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not wood lice. some of us are using wood lice (aka pill bugs) as food for our smaller leaftails. im pretty sure that what youre talking about is some sort of collembolan, or springtail. did they hope around a lot? well, unless you change absolutely everything out of the cage and renew it all, you probably wont get rid of them. they're not too harmful, from what ive seen, either. the only time they ever alarmed me was when i saw one looking like it was stealing a bit of moisture from the crack of one of my sikorae's mouth. change out the substrate and branches and it should knock the numbers down for a bit. but they're good at breaking down poo and stuff, i think leah (but cant quote) said they can also be good for breaking down other stuff like molds?

anyway, google "collembola" or "springtail" and you should get an idea if im on the right track.
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-Mike Martin
North Carolina

I was looking at springtails earlier ... and I have a feeling that they are not springtails. What I'm seeing is about 1/10 the size of them.

I went and checked my bag-o-substrate, and sure enough, they are in there. They are so small that my camera lense will not even come close to picking them up.

I seem to recall a few years back, I had these same insects attacking my uro eggs. Every one of my eggs at one point was covered with them, and ended up deflating. Possibly the eggs were infertile, but I can't help but think the bugs had something to do with it!

-Matt
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Alright, here's my best attempt at taking pics.
I took a piece of paper, and banged the corkbark on it so they ended up on the paper. I put a penny on the paper for size comparison.

Full Size

Full Size

Full Size

Gah! Now I mentally feel like I have bugs crawling all over me!

-Matt
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provent-a-mite will kill your gecko. Use it if you want a dead animal. It was designed for snakes and monitor lizards. There is no treatment out side of olive oil (yes the stuff you use on salads) and ivermectin that will rid geckos of mites. Mites are typically red and the size of a pin head. Those little white bugs are a type of soil flea. They consume the decaying matter in your soil. They usually only mass produce when the enclosure is saturated with water.

Stop your [bleep]ing about what they could be and clean the tank out. Once cleaned... put an inch thick layer of gravel down with a fine mesh covering and then put down a thick layer of organic potting soil (OSH sells some really good ones with Bat Guano to help live plants) down for the susbtrate and get some new branches and hand spray your tank so you can monitor it more closely. Uroplatus are typically cooler temperature animals and usually need high humidity, when you spray the tank the water will bog down on the bottom if there is no drainage system and saturate the soil (this happens because of the cool temps). If there is no drainage the water will not go anywhere and remain in your cage.

There are two possible things that could´ve attacked your eggs (if you had eggs) 1) a soil flea breaking down the decaying matter in an infertile egg (most likely the situation) or 2) a soil flea that found a super saturated egg container and discovered the decaying infertile eggs inside that they wanted to consume... make sense.

-b.j

Those look like springtails judging from the elongate body form as seen in that less than desireable ID photo... as a general rule, mites do not have this body type... also generally, "most" mites will not attack your gecko... The only parasitic mites that I have delt with in the past with Uropaltus have came in on the Uroplatus... There are infinately many species that do inhabit moist soils where there is decaying matter to feed on (ie feces, dead crickets, ect)...

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Ben

If you got white mites, they wil NOT harm your geckos in any way. They will eat old leaves and dead food, so they are cleaning your cage. I have had them a long time now, and they are totally harmless!!