hypo-wotsit mites question

[LisaLQ]

I was just wondering - if I were to purchase some hypoapsis mites for my tanks, would they survive in a tank which is predominantly covered in capillary matting, with only a tub or two of coir/compost?

I'm giving up on sphagnum moss, nearly every time my snails have had mites there's been moss in there, apart from the one time they were on coir. Am sick of getting them, seriously at the end of my tether and need them on capillary so I can clean it more easily if/when they get them again and while I get rid of them.

Any other anti-mite suggestions greatly appreciated - I've bathed, bare tanked, scrubbed, cleaned, quarantined, and yet as soon as I put them back on moss, they have them back.

[LisaLQ]

Ps. It's only my big viv that are affected, my babies, fulicas, immacs and tigers are all clear.

[Val]

When you say mites are you talking about these tiny flying/running around black things that seem to be everywhere, I have got them in my tanks as well, they don't lay eggs or anything but just seem to be "there" all the time, are yours the same?

Val

[LisaLQ]

No I think they're the fungus gnat things, I do have those occasionally too, but again, only in my big tank.

I'm talking about little white things crawling on the snails themselves. Which are what I think led to Mag's death. Luckily the ones affected are much bigger than she was, but either way, it's distressing them, and despite doing everything by the book so to speak, they just keep coming back.

I need mini Arnold Schwarzenegers (or however you spell it) to come and "asta la vista" them

[section8angel]

Could you get a pic of them? Macro mode and shining a torch onto them helps with me lol.

I would think as long as they had food the Hypoaspis would live in whatever conditions they were put in?
petsnails.proboards3.com/index.cgi?board=pests&action=display&n=1&thread=4425

There's Pauls thread about keeping them alive.

[LisaLQ]

If I had my old camera, yeah, but this one is a bag of poo They're probably too tiny anyway, they're literally the size of a pin head, max.

In the meantime, as of tomorrow, they'll be back in a plastic tub being bathed and cleaned out daily. Bare tank again basically. That gives me more time to pick up capillary matting and then get some of these mites, they'll have to wait for my next payday now with all I've spent out already on moss and things setting it all back up - all that just to have to bin it all again.

Fed up, well and truly. What if they never go?

[x Sarah x]

Tbh i don't think there is any effective way of getting rid of them, i got mites Last year sometime and have never got rid of them since, yes that means i still have them now, you just have to learn to live with them, i remove poop, old food and wipe down tank sides every night then i clean out and bathe snails every week or so, yes i did have a couple of snails die in the biginning, a iradelei, a smithii and a fulica, but hey its a tough world out there and theres a little known fact and that is 'survival of the fittest' only the strong survive and thats something we have to except.
All my remaining snails and i mean around 40 of them are all healthy and strong, and thats great, if they can live with mites and have the immune system to deal with them then that means any offspring they produce will have these traits passed on and be just as strong.

Although i do assure any snails i send out to people are kept alone a few days before sending out, are bathed every night for those few days as i now some people don't like the idea, and just because i can live with it doesn't mean i should assume others can or want to, so everyone who has had snails off me you can all carry on breathing now

Just thought i'd say

And i do know theres a couple more people here that are the same and just live with it, not mentioning any names though!

[Moracai]

Yep, I have them and live with it. Can't find any way of getting rid of them.
Wish there was a mite spray for snails.

[LisaLQ]

I would live with them if it weren't upsetting them so much. B & M are both eating reluctantly, burying mostly, and eating at their shells. That cant be much fun for them.

I've done everything possible to keep these at bay, poo-picking daily, feeding on a plate, not getting the moss too damp (which didn't help - made them even less active!), etc etc, and yet they're still back.

The only way I've kept them 99% gone is with bare tanks, and I wont do that permanently. So I'm going to use capillary matting, no extra burying material until they're clear, then I'm avoiding moss like the plague. And coir perhaps too. Oh I dont know.

I'm about two seconds off a breakdown here - what am I doing wrong?

[x Sarah x]

I have stopped using moss in my main tanks, i found the stuff to be terrible and like a breeding ground and any snails that died were always found in the moss when passed, and then eventually covered in feeding mites, since i have stopped using it, things seem to be better and calmer

[LisaLQ]

What do you use instead?

[x Sarah x]

Well now the warm weather is here i just use organic compost, and in the cooler months i did use capillary, but dunno bout this year, will have to do sme thinking, hmm...

[Moracai]

Has anyone ever tried the mite spray you can get for lizards? Do we know if there's anything in it that will harm snails?

[section8angel]

I couldn't find out what was in them. I've seen quite a few of them but my searches never gave me any decent info.

I think one of them did actually say it was only safe for reptiles, can't remember for sure though.

[Moracai]

I have been checking the ones online, but they don't really say much in the description.

[Val]

You can get a really safe spray for cage birds as well the ingredient is PERMETHRIN apparently it is a plant extract, would be really great if it could be used for snails.

Val

[KathyM]

Permethrin aka Pyrethrin aka other names is a natural pesticide used in farming as well as flea sprays etc. I wouldn't personally risk it on snails.

Maybe someone cleverer than me can work out toxicity from this link:

www.pesticideinfo.org/List_AquireAll.jsp?Rec_Id=PC35397&Taxa_Group=Molluscs


I know it can be really dangerous for cats and dogs too, despite being used in cheap ineffective over the counter flea collars/meds (eg. Hartz, Johnsons, Bob Martins).

[Paul]

Basically, it kills most snails outright. The list doesn't have any terrestrial snails but as their biology is very similar I would say with 99.9% certainty that if it kills water-snails it will kill land snails.

[KathyM]

Paul - how have you found the hypoapsis work for these mites? Is it worth getting some? TBH I'm struggling here with a couple of tanks and I'm fed up with bare tanking (or daily substrate changes) and daily showering of snails, as soon as they go back on substrate they're back. They came in on a rescue snail and they won't bugger off! I've got some rescues here that are still waiting to go out to a new home because I daren't send them 'til they're 100% free of these.

[nacre]

I don't see why they wouldn't work.
I have used Hypoaspis miles for infested spiders and also to millipedes, and it works.

[nacre]

By the way, are you sure that you have mites and not just springtails?

[KathyM]

Yes these are mites - tiny pinprick white mites, some are ginger-ish colour and slightly larger (I assume they're the mature ones).

[deadmansfinger]

lots of folk seem to blame moss for their mites but do you really think this is the case? I have used moss in all my tanks for years
(from lots of sources) and never had a problem. I had mites once that came in on some wild caught snails but keeping them in a nearly bare tank and washing them daily solved the problem.

Or do you just mean that the mites breed more rapidly in moss than say in coir or compost?

Brian.

[LisaLQ]

My mites are coming in on something. I have baretanked and bathed/cleaned tank daily for weeks, only to put them back on moss and get them back. I've had to quarantine 3 times now due to this. I always check incoming snails, my WCs are still in quarantine despite not having signs of anything. My fulicas, which are were the majority of my newest snails are, haven't had mites, neither have my other tanks on coir. Purely the sphagnum.

So unless these mites are related to Jesus and good at coming back from the dead, these must be coming in on the moss.

I cant keep them on compost/coir as they hated it and attempted to aestivate. When I added moss the mites returned, quickly spreading through the coir - I noticed too late, they were infested, and Magenta and Nigel died.

But I can say that each time we've had them here, I have quarantined every single snail in bare tanks, bathed daily, and meticulously (sp?) cleaned out their old tanks and left them dry and bare so that if on the odd chance there were mites left in them, they would die. So this isn't just an excuse to cover up me being lazy.

[KathyM]

I've found they're more prevalent and harder to get rid of in moss (even after the use of boiling water and bleaching the tanks, they cropped up in the moss in clusters again), so I don't use it any more - since I stopped using it I haven't had any in the margie tanks etc. I haven't seen them as much in other substrates, but I do keep spotting them on fulica poo, but not for the last week thank God.