Possible Mites? :(

[vikingsnail]

Hi - I think I might have a mite problem I just noticed two tiny bugs in the water dish - swimming around in there (maybe on the water surface, can't be sure). They were white, about 1mm long and definetely had legs.

Now, I had mites a while back and treated them with hypoaspis. But, my dad seems to think these 'mites' look different to last time - bigger, long and thin with lots of legs. I'm not sure, the last lot might have been smaller.. but I can't tell.

What do you think? What should I do? So far I've only spotted two and both my snails aren't showing any signs of illness. I'm gonna clean the tank and bath the snails as soon as I can (tonight or tomorrow) and will order more hypoaspis if that's what I need to do.

Please help!

[vikingsnail]

I've just cleaned them out and given them a good bath - haven't seen any more mites so far so I'm just going to keep an eye on things for a while I guess. I get the feeling I'll end up ordering the hypoaspis anyway though!

[aerliss]

Not that I'm any kind of expert, but I've read that hypoaspis will happily devour most varieties of teeny invertebrate.

What substrate are you using, out of curiosity?

[vikingsnail]

I use compost - it's general purpose stuff from the garden centre with nothing added, and I sterilise it in the microwave before I use it. I also use some sphagnum moss (the dry type) which I clean with boiling water and zap in the microwave before it goes in the tank too.

Yeah, I'm sure I'll get some hypoaspis soon, I just want to keep an eye on things for a couple of days so I'm certain.

[aerliss]

If it weren't for the microwaving I'd suspect it was something from the compost, as I found similar things in my water bowl when I was using compost. Couldn't get rid of the little blighters... but I've not had the problem with coir.

However; invertebrates, especially the smaller ones, can survive all sorts of things that would leave other animals not only dead but mushy.

[kanin]

Sounds like springtails to me. They do some cleaning in the tank and arent really hurting the snails, but if they get too many they can start iritating the snails which can lead to inactivity. I dont think hyposapis will be able to do much against them though.

They are quite easy to get rid of with a clean out or at least desimate in numbers. I used to have a lot of them in some of my larger forest tanks but when I got some climbing fikus early this year some sort of really small spiders managed to get in aswell, the spiders are now feasting on the springtails. Keeping the population down but grosing me out as i have arachnophobia

[vikingsnail]

Ah I don't think I could deal with spiders in the tank!

Hmm, well I just checked out springtails on google images and they do look similar.. very similar, but with something so small it's really hard to tell. I haven't seen any more in the tank so far, and haven't seen anything on the snails atall (even with a magnifying glass) so I think I need to play the waiting game.

I do hope they're something other than mites though!

[aerliss]

Kanin, building a little piece of the outdoors one tiny critter at a time? You'll have sparrows next, feasting on the spiders.

*sings* There was an old woman who swallowed a fly...

[coyote]

That's not such a bad idea, though, because the closer we can replicate the natural habitat for our snails, with the full range of interdependent species, the healthier and happier our snails will be.

[vikingsnail]

Well, still no sign of any bugs in there, so I'm feeling hopeful these were springtails that we got rid of with the clean out.

I showed my dad some pics of springtails (as he caught one of the bugs from the tank and looked at it under a magnifying glass) and he seems to think they look the same. But I'll be keeping a very careful eye on things!

[coyote]

Glad they seem to be gone. It's wise to be on the lookout for more, though.