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Grain Mites ? What do they look like and how to get rid of them?


aoikirin

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I have noticed these little creatures on pieces of carrot in some of my enclosures.  They seem wingless and I took pictures but this site doesn't accept them.  

 

What do they look like and how can I get rid of them? Are they dangerous for my roaches? They are pets for me and I don't want any preventable harm to come to them.

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  • 11 months later...
On 5/26/2018 at 11:11 PM, aoikirin said:

I have noticed these little creatures on pieces of carrot in some of my enclosures.  They seem wingless and I took pictures but this site doesn't accept them.  

 

What do they look like and how can I get rid of them? Are they dangerous for my roaches? They are pets for me and I don't want any preventable harm to come to them.

 

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Grain mites look like very tiny, pale spiders. You can get rid of them by keeping the enclosure drier, and by providing less to no grain-based food for them to feed on. They can annoy your roaches in large numbers, and are known to cause skin irritation sometimes in humans, but in small numbers are harmless.

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I can see the pic but it's a bit blurry and I'm not too knowledgeable about pests or identifying them, but maybe springtails?
If they are springtails then they could actually be beneficial, since they just eat waste and leftovers, keeping your substrate clean. The ones I have in my millipede enclosure look smaller and whiter, but I think there are lots of kinds of springtails. I would wait to hear a more experienced person's opinion though, this is just my amateur guess, I'm curious as well.

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If you can't keep springs alive, it's probably either too dry or too sterile for them, or both. Best to keep a master culture of them in ideal conditions (a container of charcoal with yeast sprinkled in and at least an inch of water) and sprinkle them into the enclosure until they establish. That way, if they die off, you have more.

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  • 3 months later...
On 5/1/2019 at 9:30 PM, aoikirin said:

Definitely springtails, not harmful at all and actually quite beneficial. :)

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On 5/2/2019 at 5:30 AM, aoikirin said:

Actually these kind of grey springtails also tend to inhabit my terrariums and my eclosures on their own, they came from outside I guess and now they are in the ground in large numbers sometimes, but they are defenitely not harmful and they help eating away even the smallest piece of leftovers...

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