Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello, I have a fruit fly culture and there appears to be little white mites.I know they're not maggots b/c they're round with legs and they're smaller than the maggots in general.Does anybody know what they are? And should I be concerned about them contaminating the fruit fly culture or my frog tanks??? Thanks for any info Detrick105

1.0.0 PHYLLOMEDUSA BICOLOR (Giant Monkey Frog)
1.0.0 PHYLLOMEDUSA HYPOCONDRIALIS (Orange-Legged Leaf-Frog)
1.2.0 AGALYCHNIS CALLIDRYAS (Red-Eyed Leaf-Frog)

THANKS

ive had the same thing come up. i was buying d. hydei cultures from petsmart, then taking them home to propagate them myself. then, all of the sudden i started noticing fewer fruit flies in the cultures, and more of these tiny white specks that i realized were mites. some of the cultures at the pet store were purely mites. and of course, they ended up getting into my home cultures. i dont know what risk they carry, but i definitely know that they can impact your cultures. might wanna contact whoever it is that makes your cultures.
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-Mike Martin
North Carolina

Hello, the fruit fly culture is from Petsmart. I dumped some of the flies into my Phyllomedusa hypocondrialis (Orange-Legged Leaf-Frog) tank and into my Agalychnis callidryas (Red-Eyed Leaf-Frog) tank before I noticed the mites, I'm hoping that the mites will not harm the frogs, so if anyone knows anything please drop a line. I'm gonna take the fruit fly culture back to Petsmart and point out the mites. THANKS Steve

1.0.0 Phyllomedusa bicolor (Giant Monkey Frog)
1.0.0 Phyllomedusa hypocondrialis (Orange-Legged Leaf-Frog)
1.2.0 Agalychnis callidryas (Red Eye Tree Frog)

Hi Steve,
Just in case you didn't know:
The best prevention against mite infestations is cleanliness. Just laying the lid or covering of a culture onto a counter can pick up mites too small to see and when placed back onto the top of the culture vessel you have allowed mites to contaminate you culture. The mites are perfectly harmless but can generate quickly and overcome a culture. If a culture is contaminated it should be destroyed and a new culture started from a new source, which is not contaminated.

Personally, we would destroy the contaminated culture without feeding any more of the flies, but this may not be so easy for all. Fortunately, there are wonderful new treatments to rid herp enclosures and the herps themselves of mites - but we would try to avoid contact if possible. I would ask an experienced frog keeper about the potential danger of mite sprays for frogs though.