Mites on roaches!

chamlover

chamlover

New Member
About 1 month ago i bought about 10 Madagascar Hissers and have fed off only about 3 of them to my beardies (didn't find out till after i bought them that i shouldn't feed them to my chams, but that's ok). I dont handle them, i'm still trying to get over my roach phobia. Anyway i had someone come over the house yesterday that actually likes these things and she was showing me the difference between male and female and surprise. She showed me a mite on one of the roaches. Now what do i do? And how do they get mites? Is it something i did? My hubby said maybe i haven't kept the enclosure clean enough for them, i don't know. Help!!! What do i do now? Do i have to throw them away? And not only that but i house my other roaches next to them, in another container, do you think they might have them too? I have no clue which direction to go.

Debby
 
It is spooky how we all seem to parallel eachother's experiences. I had a major roach tank clean up today, after discovering this morning that my dubias had grain mites in with them. My fault. Their lettuce got too close to the dry food, and, on the bottom of the tank beneath the veggies a damp goo had formed. Perfect for breeding mites.

Thank you, Kingyonga, I had never heard about putting lady bugs in with the roaches. I may need to do that, too, since I did not discard the roaches (although I think I read that you're supposed to if they get mites?). I picked out all the dubias (very time consuming) and destroyed all their furnishings, bleached out their tank, and replaced their food stuff. I planned to leave the colony alone for about a month. It had been thinning out and needs to replenish itself.

What really grosses me out is that I've been told that the mites come from the grain in their food. I make my own feeder foods and gutloads. The dubias are fed a recipe developed from 2 other recipes, one of which is Studiocham's (her recipe from the Melleri Discovery site). It's all real people food, with the exception of ground up Alfalfa pellets. I am hoping the mites came from the Alfalfa pellets, as I don't want to consider the thought that we are all eating mite eggs in our cereals and flax meal, etc.
 
I've also been battling grain mites for a little while now. They are such a pain in the arse! The grain mites totally explode and multiply within a few days too, it's unreal.

So we should add lady bugs to our roach bins to clean up grain mites?
 
Great, Now i have to figure out what kinda mites they are too! lol. The one i had was white. What kinda mite does that make it?


So my choices are:
Get lady bugs and put them in to clean out the mites, just make sure i don't give them to my chams.
or
Get rid of all my roaches?

I don't like that one. Can i completely clean out my tank and then put lady bugs in? How long do you keep them in there?

Debby
 
I couldn't bring myself to throw out the dubias. I cleaned everything up, will probably get the lady bugs, and hope for the best.

The grain mites are little white ones. As opposed to the red mites (or other colors) you might find on some reptiles.
 
Yeah, they are microscopic white mites. You'll see them everywhere in your dubia bin in the next few days. They multiply rapidly.

Once I get the grain mites under control and 100% gone, I'm going to use Flukers Orange Cube.
 
The hissing roaches have a natural, symbiotic relationship with mites.
The mites clean them and are actually beneficial.

-Brad
 
chamlover said:
Exactly what causes these?

Debby
Click to expand...

From what I understand their eggs are in grains that are used to produce food. When the food gets warm and damp (or if the tank is too humid), and stays that way long enough, the eggs hatch.

I didn't have this prob when I used the cubes.

And, yes, the population does suddenly "explode". I had that happen in a cricket bin once. I disposed of the entire mess, bin, crickets, and all. There were so many mites they were coating the sides of the bin. That was when I first learned about the mites. I hadn't even noticed them until that day.
 
Ok now i'm totally confused. If they have a symbolic relationship with the hissers does that mean that i should leave them alone? That doesnt sound right to me.

And if i should clean out the cage and get ladybugs, where do i get them? Do i just go outside and call them? lol. Or is there someplace where i can buy them.

Debby
 
Our home depot was selling little bags of lady bugs in the garden department.

I wondered about the symbiotic relationship between the hissers the mites and the chameleons? It's nice that the mites get the hissers all nice and clean, but then do they jump off and trot away with a towel slung over their shoulder when they're done? :) The article Kinyonga linked to was about hissers as pets.

We did get in a female ambilobe once whose first fecal with us (the day after she arrived) revealed a whole grain mite. She passed it undigested and was none the worse for it. So, perhaps it's nothing to worry about.
 
Last edited:
Well,
whether or not it sounds right to you the relationship between hissers and a certain type of mite exists and it is not symbolic ... it is symbiotic.
Meaning: both organisms live in harmony and benefit from each other.
The roaches provide the mites with food and the mites, in turn, keep the roaches clean.
If you suspect that they are grain mites or some other type of infestation (as Gesang refers to) that may be a different story, but if the mites are the ones I am referring to ... they are completely harmless and in fact beneficial to the roaches.
Are they all over the enclosure, or just on the roaches themselves?
Can you post a picture?

-Brad
 
If you are concerned with feeding roaches with their symbiotic mites still on them to the chameleons, why not separate out a few roaches first and put them with the ladybugs until they are clear of mites and then feed them to the chameleons. The roaches won't need the mites to stay alive for the few hours before they are eaten.
 
You can get rid of the mites on the hissers by "shake & bake" method, without the bake part. Put a roach in a baggie of flour and gently shake. Gently brush excess flour off with a soft paintbrush. The beneficial mites on hissers are not grain mites. Help with grain mites, keep the lid off if possible. Grain mites need moisture to thrive. Keep roaches as dry as possible. Air flo is important. And keep leftover food to a minimum. Try to feed only every few days, don't leave food in the bin. The mites should start to disappear.
 
Howdy,

Over the years, I've had my share of grain mite problems. It's been mostly with superworms and caused by putting a few moist veggies on top of their bedding :eek:. I've learned that if I want to keep the infested supers for a while longer while they get fed-off, I put them and their bedding container in an inch of soapy water so that any (usually billions of them :() that climb out of the superworm container end up drowning in the soapy water :). I did the same thing with my Lobster roach colony and after a month, the mites disappeared on their own. My dubias have never had a mite problem (yet).

Or I suppose you could use tweezers. How long could it take with only a few billion mites :rolleyes:?
 
Dave Weldon said:
Howdy,

Over the years, I've had my share of grain mite problems. It's been mostly with superworms and caused by putting a few moist veggies on top of their bedding :eek:. I've learned that if I want to keep the infested supers for a while longer while they get fed-off, I put them and their bedding container in an inch of soapy water so that any (usually billions of them :() that climb out of the superworm container end up drowning in the soapy water :). I did the same thing with my Lobster roach colony and after a month, the mites disappeared on their own. My dubias have never had a mite problem (yet).

Or I suppose you could use tweezers. How long could it take with only a few billion mites :rolleyes:?
Click to expand...

That's brilliant Dave! Thanks for that input! That's one way of making sure the buggers don't spread all over the place like they usually do.
 
Howdy Derrik,

It took me something like 4-5 hours to clean the mites out of all of the misc. items in my chameleon room storage cabinets the first time it happened. Just overnight, the entire area was one crawling mass of microdot white grain mites :(.
 
Dave Weldon said:
Howdy Derrik,

It took me something like 4-5 hours to clean the mites out of all of the misc. items in my chameleon room storage cabinets the first time it happened. Just overnight, the entire area was one crawling mass of microdot white grain mites :(.
Click to expand...

Dave, I totally know the feeling. The first time I seen it, I thought nothing of it and thought it was just wet food turned into jelly mass on the lid of the roach bin. A week later, when I took a closer look, they were moving! It was totally disgusting and they had migrated to other things other then the roach bin.

I think I'm going to use your method with ALL my feeder insect bins, just as a precaution. Thanks for sharing! :D
 
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