Anyone have experience with Mites vs. Predatory Mites?

snitz427

Chameleon Enthusiast
I've inherited an awesome small snail colony that is intended for breeding/feeding my chams. I noticed last night that one snail has mites and he seemed particularly annoyed by them. I'm sure the others have or will soon have them, as well. I will be cleaning out their container and bathing them at some point this week, but I doubt that will 100% irradicate the mites, so I am considering adding predatory mites to the enclosure. The predatory mites will eat the other mites that harass the snails, but they don't prey on the snails themselves. I don't want to run into an issue where mites end up in my other feeder colonies... so I've contemplated just adding mites to the snails and separating the eggs for cleaning / hatching. They are clearly bothering the snail, otherwise I'd probably ignore them as I plan to hatch the baby snails in another (sterile) container.

Just wondering if anyone has experience with them? If you are in the US, where did you find them? Everywhere I've found so far is either very expensive or includes far more than I need. Anyone have tips/techniques for managing mites in general? I don't have them in my other colonies but I am paranoid about having them pop up in my isopod colonies.
 
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Two cute slimeballs for views!
 
They're detritus mites, unfortunately very common where it is humid with a lot of junk for them to feed on. Springtails usually outcompete them, but the problem is, springtails also annoy the snails. Drying out the substrate(which is difficult with snails) and removing uneaten food cuts them back by a lot. They'll pop up in bioactive substrates everywhere though and don't harm anything other than annoy things like snails. I have no experience with predatory mites(only wasps, for aphids). I've heard they can wander off and kill a lot of the beneficial critters in the substrate so I've avoided using them.
 
Thanks @jamest0o0 ! There seems to be one species of mite that preys only on other mites, however, I suppose once those mites are wiped out, they need to get their food from somewhere. If I can find them inexpensively I think I will give them a try, just for one or two substrate cleanings. Hopefully between cleaning, bathing, and a month of predator mites, it will knock out the mites that are preying on the snails. I would just let nature take its course but I have one snail that looks like it had a frontal lobotomy thanks to the mites lol
 
The mites won't bother the isopods and isopods will quickly outcompete any of them. As long as you don't have excess food in any colonies where they blow up to the point of annoyance you'll be good. I've only ever seen them in a roach colony when I had mass die off from temp swing. After I cleared the dead they disappeared as well.

Just trying to ease your mind, they freaked me out when I saw them first years ago, but they're totally harmless and easy to manage (y).
 
Let me know how they go for you if you do. The mites shouldn't be preying on the snails though, is there a hole in the shell? That might be from another snail and the mites feed off the dirt and poop stuck to the shell.
 
Let me know how they go for you if you do. The mites shouldn't be preying on the snails though, is there a hole in the shell? That might be from another snail and the mites feed off the dirt and poop stuck to the shell.

No hole that I noticed, but I didn't spend much time looking them over. I probably wouldn't have noticed the mites if my one snail didn't look so disheveled. I thought it was dead and left its shell, then I saw the mites. I sprayed it liberally with water and it seemed to appreciate it.

Ok, I will still change the substrate and give them a snail shower (ew!) and just see how it plays out. I'm guessing they didn't affect your mating population? That's all I'm really concerned about - them being unhappy and not producing.
 
Good idea! Yeah they will annoy them to the point they don't breed. IME they would kind of come and go. I must have left some food in there too long.
 
Good idea! Yeah they will annoy them to the point they don't breed. IME they would kind of come and go. I must have left some food in there too long.

I probably did. I didn't pick out the old food (hard to find it) I put in last week. Think I'm going to try cucumbers as they'll be a little easier to pull out. Operation Slimey Rubber Ducky will be under effect starting tomorrow!
 
I probably did. I didn't pick out the old food (hard to find it) I put in last week. Think I'm going to try cucumbers as they'll be a little easier to pull out. Operation Slimey Rubber Ducky will be under effect starting tomorrow!

Lol good luck, feel free to hit me up with any questions. They were probably there to begin with, just in small numbers. With the extra food they'll explode pretty fast and then die down again.
 
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