Orange mites help

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 11:11 am

I just picked up my crab today and he has orange mites. He just finished molting a few days ago and has been changing shells. I have orange sand so it was hard to tell at first and the mights are very small.

How do I get rid of them- he is the only one in his tank. I just bought new shells but I boiled them before I put them in his tank. Sigh.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 12:12 pm

Keep your crab in isolation for now - change the substrate for sand that has been baked or microwaved to kill off any mites or eggs that may be hiding in it and bath the crab in dechlorinated salt water (mites hate salt water). It may take repeated bathings to get rid of the mites - you can also, if your crab will come out of the shell for long enough, dab the mites off with a cotton bud soaked in salt water.

Mites lay eggs, so when you're sure your crab is free of them and have transferred him to the main tank, sterilise the iso tank very carefully to ensure no eggs remain.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 12:19 pm

very odd though, when I bathed him there were no mites, I am wondering if I really saw them or just freaked out. I put him in iso and changed everything in his cage. So I will just be watching him closely for a bit.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 12:23 pm

In your ISO,if you use paper towels you can spot them better. Also helps after when you bathe them you just toss it away.

If you give a salt water bath, you will need to wait a bit to see the mites come off.....they are stubborn...Robin and I both got Straws this one night, at the same place and they all had mites...

NaRnAR · Post by **NaRnAR** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 1:19 pm

The orange/red mites are spider mites, I see them a lot outside on plants. But I would guess that bathing would also rid the hermies of these type of mites.

Lemme search the internet for a sec and Ill post what I find.

EDIT: I found that red/spider mites are only plant eaters and can be gotten rid of with water. It seems they have no interest whatso ever with animals, except, probably as something to ride on to another plant.

I would definitly ISO the hermie that has them tho...dont want them expanding out of the tank as they are rather hazardous to plants.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 6:23 pm

thank you everyone for the help

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 6:46 pm

NaRnAR wrote:The orange/red mites are spider mites, I see them a lot outside on plants. But I would guess that bathing would also rid the hermies of these type of mites.

Lemme search the internet for a sec and Ill post what I find.

EDIT: I found that red/spider mites are only plant eaters and can be gotten rid of with water. It seems they have no interest whatso ever with animals, except, probably as something to ride on to another plant.

I would definitly ISO the hermie that has them tho...dont want them expanding out of the tank as they are rather hazardous to plants.

I hate these things... I recently tried to grow pole green beans, they didn't make it very far... On close inspection I saw spider webs ALL over, connecting the plants, and little red spiders on the plants.

Very annoying pest, but as NaRnAR said, they shouldn't really harm animals...

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 7:29 pm

I have also got (2) red/orange mites on my one new ruggie. I tried a salt water bath to get rid of them but they just held on. I tried a q-tip but my hermie kept hiding on me, I also tried taper on the end of a garbage tie. My last resort was doubling the salt treatment and the one mite ran for dear life and I snagged it and threw it in the salt water bath I haven't seen any signs of the other one yet but I want to let my hermie rest he is soooo stressed after me trying to get it off him. Just wanted to share problem. I will have to check tomorrow for the other one right now my poor hermie is in ISO all alone

NaRnAR · Post by **NaRnAR** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 8:22 pm

Ive seen a couple hermies with spider mites, as I was looking at the petstores. I really dont think they are an immediate danger to hermies, since they are plant eaters. I would give the crabs that you bathe a couple days to recover from the bath and if the mites still havent left then bath again.

But, from what I read, they will only lay their eggs on plants so that the baby mites have immediate food. Maybe if you intorduced a hermie safe plant or leaf to the ISO the mite will get onto that??

I have them on my flower garden at work, but they dont seem to be doing much damage. They are especially drawn to the more hardy of the plants that I have...the one that lived after I pulled it out and replanted it, and now is spreading. LOL!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 8:33 pm

Spider mites won't prey on the crabs, but there are orange/red mites that are pests of birds and reptiles. So it's hard to say if they're spider mites or not. If they are spider mites, they cannot live without plants to eat, so they should die out relatively quickly. In the temperature and conditions of a crab tank, their full life cycle should turn in about 28 days, give or take.

However, if they are bird mites or some other kind of mite (or even if they ARE spider mites) there is a predatory mite that won't hurt your crabs, that will eat the mites and their larvae and eggs. I've used them to wipe out the big red mites that came with some Petco crabs.

There's an article about it here:

http://www.crabstreetjournal.com/module ... =0&thold=0

Treating a mite infestation in this way beats the repeated salt bath and deep clean six ways from Sunday. Less stress on the crabs. Less work for you.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Aug 07, 2005 9:38 pm

the size of the mites are smaller than a grain of sand. and I only saw one.