Princisia vanwaerebeki death & mite problem

[TheSwarmThing]

Hi everyone, I would like to ask for some help with my Princisia vanwaerebeki.

I found one of the males dead just a few miuntes ago. There are plenty of mites on him. Do you have any idea what kind of mites these would be? They seem to be different from the symbiotic ones. Could this be the cause of death? I have no idea how to get rid of the mites.

I would appreciate any suggestions.

[Manuel_P]

Were the mites already on the roach before it died? 

Or did they appear after the death?

[Hisserdude]

They look like grain mites. I don't know if they were the cause of his death or just went to the body after he died, either way though you really don't want those in your enclosures. I'd recommend keeping your hissers dryer, feed them only as much as they'll eat in two days and maybe increase ventilation if there isn't much in their enclosure.

[TheSwarmThing]

@Manuel_P I haven't seen any mites on the roaches, only the symbiotic ones running around on them. So I think they appared after death.

@Hisserdude Thanks for the suggestion, I will try to do that. The ventillation wasn't so good in their enclosure. I bought a new one, and relocated all my roaches to the new, clean box. 

Do you have any idea, how these mites could get to my enclosures? Now I've checked all of them and I could find them elsewhere, mainly on the food of the roaches. I try to keep everything clean, I even wash the tweezers between enclosures...

[pannaking22]

10 hours ago, TheSwarmThing said:

@Manuel_P I haven't seen any mites on the roaches, only the symbiotic ones running around on them. So I think they appared after death.

@Hisserdude Thanks for the suggestion, I will try to do that. The ventillation wasn't so good in their enclosure. I bought a new one, and relocated all my roaches to the new, clean box. 

Do you have any idea, how these mites could get to my enclosures? Now I've checked all of them and I could find them elsewhere, mainly on the food of the roaches. I try to keep everything clean, I even wash the tweezers between enclosures...

Grain mites are everywhere and there's really nothing you can do about it unfortunately. All you can really do is try to discourage large populations. Removing the dead and old food like @Hisserdude said and increasing ventilation for species that tolerate dryness better is about all you can do. Grain mites like moist enclosures better, or those with something dead and rotting, but a way to combat them in moist enclosures is to use isopods or springtails as your clean up crew. They'll do a good job competing with the mites for resources and help keep the numbers down. 

[TheSwarmThing]

Thank you @pannaking22 for the suggestions. I was really worried because of the mites. I have some isopods in other enclosures, I'll add some more to the mite-infected ones.

Thanks a lot!

[Hisserdude]

On 1/5/2017 at 11:45 PM, TheSwarmThing said:

@Manuel_P I haven't seen any mites on the roaches, only the symbiotic ones running around on them. So I think they appared after death.

@Hisserdude Thanks for the suggestion, I will try to do that. The ventillation wasn't so good in their enclosure. I bought a new one, and relocated all my roaches to the new, clean box. 

Do you have any idea, how these mites could get to my enclosures? Now I've checked all of them and I could find them elsewhere, mainly on the food of the roaches. I try to keep everything clean, I even wash the tweezers between enclosures...

Well that's good, sounds like their population isn't too large then. Hope the change of enclosure and ventilation helps keep their numbers down!

Grain mites are everywhere, they could have come in with your roaches, or they could have come from outdoors. Once you have them there is seldom a way to completely eradicate them, but you can keep their numbers down to where they aren't even noticeable.