mites love ff cultures', every ff culture i have ever got from petco or petsmart had mites in it, including one i got just recently, i will never buy ff from petco or petsmart again.i talked to the petco supplier who assured me that their cultures are mite free when they go out but said the problem is that petco always keeps their cultures next to the crickets. there are several ff sellers on ebay and junart79 is the only one that guarantees them mite free. recently got a culture from junart79 to supplement the existing culture that i usually keep going. i did macroscopically inspect it when i got it, and it was in fact mite free. i dont know what is in their media, but i have tried most commercially available and most homemade media and the media from junart is in my opinion the best, it doesnt smell or mold as readily as most other and it has a good rate of return. remember that if you are dumping cultures that have mites then you are also dumping mites. if you ever notice your chams rubbing their eyes on the plants after dumping ffs it is probably because of mites. you can get a 30x handheld viewer at radio shack for about $15 that works great for spotting mites. jmo