white lice

[raven]

Hi i have noticed that i have millions of tiny white lice in my tank. They are crawling over the snails and tbh my snails dont look happy about it. I use the same soil and have only ever had problems with fruit flies which have now dissapeared. I recently bought some new snails and i think they may have come from those.

Can anybody help me identify what these could be and if they are harming my snails?

I tried cleaning them out thorougly (even bathed the snails) but i just checked and there's absolutly millions

[heydihoo]

hi
they are springtails they are harmless in small numbers but for achatina species the snails could get stressed and die they feed on decaying bacteria and snail poo in the tank its best to clean your snails out if their is millions and bath your snails to minimize their numbers also to keep them at bay you can spot clean the tank daily removing poo and old food

regards
eric

[101100101111]

all that advice is valid except they may not be springtails, there is a page on mites here: www.petsnails.co.uk/problems/mites.html#start

they can be very annoying, and most snail-keepers have them at some time or other, as long as you keep the tank clean the snails should be alright. however make sure you don't go insane with the cleaning as this is bad for snails.

[amilynn]

I'm not experienced with snail-keeping, but if it's seriously in the millions range would it maybe be smart to transfer your snails to a smaller container temporarily and pull everything out of their old tank, sterilize it, and start over? They'll bring some if the little jerks back with them, of course, but it seems better than washing the snails and putting them back into an infested tank.

[coyote]

Not everything that crawls on snails is going to be a parasitic mite. Use a magnifying glass to take a close look at the creatures. If you can seen wings on them or if they have only 6 legs, they are not mites, in which case they pose no direct threat to your snails.

[raven]

thanx for all the replies

I will go buy some soil (since they were cleaned out not long ago i have none atm)
Yeh they sound like springtails since they are "springing" all over. when i clean them out i usually do do a whole clean out and the stupid things came back in force
gunna have to make sure i boil the tank i think and then make sure i get all of them off my snails.

I will try to see how many legs they have but they never stay still long lol.

[coyote]

If they are springing, they are not mites.

[Robert Nordsieck]

There is something you can do. A friend of mine had the same problem and she bought predatory mites. Those do exist, they are quite small and red and they eat everything their size. On one hand they could never harm a snail, but they eat other mites, springtails and also the larvae of rather annoying fruit flies.

When there is nothing to eat anymore they will simply die out. They are pretty fast and they run all over the terrarium