Gyna centurio mite problem

[Entomology_and_herpetology]

A friend of mine has been battling grain mites in his G centurio colony and today he messaged me seeing if I wanted to give it a shot since I'm a little more experienced with blattodea than he is. So the question is, what can I do to eradicate these mites? I don't have a whole lot of experience with mites so I came here for help. Also have a couple of questions. I understand the adults can climb smooth surfaces, would a petroleum jelly barrier prevent this? I know it works for my hissers and German roaches but I've heard some species can climb over it. Are they easy to breed? I've done a little digging around and it sounds like a typical roach setup  would work and that they seem to like it on the dryer side. How about ventilation? Do they need high or low ventilation? Do they have any specific eating habits or is a typical roach diet fine? Any advice is appreciated. 

 

[Allpet Roaches]

It's tough to get rid of grain mites because there are probably some in your house and certainly around your house. However, it is possible to get them down to where  you won't be able to find any if you look. Start with fresh substrate and only add food a day or two after every last particle of food has been eaten.

 

[Entomology_and_herpetology]

Well hopefully they'll be easier to get rid of since, to my knowledge, there are no grain mites in my house. I'll have them quarantined to minimize risk of my other colonies getting infected. 

 

[Entomology_and_herpetology]

So I have an update that will hopefully help those of you who also encounter mite problems. The owner of the roaches, @mrcyriocosmus on Instagram, found a solution. He said he put them in a cup and covered them in table salt and then shook em around a good bit so the salt could scrape off the mites and dry them out and then used a strainer to separate them and afterwards they seem to be pretty clean. He's keeping them in quarantine still with a little salt and I believe he said he's going to give them a couple of salt treatments to make sure they"re cured. I'll see if I can upload a picture of the roaches beforehand so you guys can understand how bad they were. 

 

[mehraban]

The easiest way to get rid of these mites is to use predatory mites, usually it is Hypoaspis miles (now it's Stratiolaelaps scimitus, but the previous name is in use also). It's widely accessible as one of the "tools" for biological pest-control.

It successfully eliminates all such creatures, and to some extent can even control larger pests, such as phorids (AFAIU, by eating their eggs and newborn larvae).

Alas, in small setups it also destroys soil in-fauna, such as springtails etc., but does no harm to roaches, even with small and tender hatchlings.

 

[Hisserdude]

Best thing to do is keep the roaches as bit drier, (Gyna centurio can handle and may even prefer a semi-humid setup, so this isn't too hard), increase ventilation, and then lower the volume of grain based foods, fruits and veggies offered to the colony, (only offer as much as you think they'll eat in a couple days, and remove leftovers after 48 hours). Offering food in the driest parts of the enclosure and doing so in shallow food bowls (like old milk or juice caps) helps too. This should greatly reduce the numbers of grain mites to a nearly undetectable level over time.