DOUBLE wammy!!! I have mites!!!

[tigermoon89]

I received my order from LHC today and a few of the Straws had mites. They are in a 10gal iso with wet paper towels as substrate and will be bathed 3x daily with double strength salt water.
*These mites are white and round but smaller than woodlice and look slightly different.

Now here is the realy major problem- My 125gal has mites!!!!!

I purchased a jumbo hermit crab (as well as another jumbo that sadly passed on) from petsmart- bathed him and checked for mites. I didn't find anything. Normally I iso for a week or two but he looked so cramped and miserable in my 20gal so I decided to move him to the main tank early since he appeared to be clean.

Well I exchanged a crab that I bought with him (the crab had passed on)- I didn't see any mites on him either with the first bath. Kept him in my 20gal for the night. Gave him a bath today and saw that he had a mite crawl back into his shell.
-This really worried me so I decided to check the jumbo and this time when I bathed him he had- mites pouring off of him!!!!!! They are tiny and threadlike. They aren't the same as the mites that LHC has. They literally look like tiny floating hairs.

What are they?
What is the best way to clean out the main tank-

I have a couple of ideas let me know what you think is best:

A) Bathe all crabs on the surface and see how bad the problem is. Dig up and remove molters. Keep all crabs in a storage bin (30 Es and PPs- small/medium) on wet paper towels as substrate. Depending on how severe the problem- bathe for mites daily.
-Throw all substrate away, bake and clean all climbing items, shells, hides and dishes.
- Treat empty tank with a miticide. Clean really really well with hot water and soap. Then rinse out with more hot water. Until tank no longer has miticide smell and until I feel that is cleaned out well. This will be done over the coarse of 2 days. (Treat with miticide day 1, let tank rest for night). Day two do scrub down with soap and water, then hot water rinse out-repeated multiple times.
Day three- add new substrate. Place crabs back into main tank once they are all mite free.

B) Leave substrate in tank- remove all crabs on the surface- treat with salt water bathes. Leave molters alone. Purchase predatory mites and hope they do the trick. (Will they be able to get to the mites that may be on molters that have dug down)?
Still bake and clean all other items.

How many vials of the predatory mites should I buy- how do I treat all the crabs- I have the 125gal with molters, a 10gal with straws, a 10gal with my jumbo since he is infested with a dif. type of mite, and a tiny in a storage container with moss- I don't know if she is infested but she came from the same store so I bet she is.

Any help and insight is much appreciated! I really can't believe how this- its a double wammy! I've been waiting until I could order straws (2 year wait) and now I have this disaster on my hands! :roll:

[tigermoon89]

ps: my camera fell into a fish tank and is no longer working- I can't post pics This has so not been my month!

[wodesorel]

On bookmark in case the four I bought had mites that stuck around. This is great reading!

http://greenmethods.com/site/biocontrols/hypoaspis/

Also, they may not be sold as hypoaspis mites anymore. There was an official scientific name change last month, though most places are sticking with the name they know.

http://greenmethods.com/site/weblog/201 ... hypoaspis/

[tigermoon89]

Thanks Wodesorel!

I placed an order for H. Miles.

Can anyone answer these questions (I just copied and pasted what I sent to the seller here):

I AM USING THIS MITE TO HELP ELIMINATE HARMFUL MITES THAT ARE KNOWN TO EAT HERMIT CRABS WHILE ALIVE. I HAVE VARIOUS TANKS IN USE- WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO DISTRIBUTE THIS MITE INTO THE TANKS? (TANK SIZES- 125GAL, 20GAL, AND two 10GAL).

THE SUBSTRATE USED IS REGULAR PLAYSAND- HOW LIKELY IS IT THAT THIS MITE WILL BE ABLE TO BURY WITHIN THE SAND- I HAVE HERMIT CRABS THAT ARE MOLTING (BURY DOWN INTO SAND AND SHED EXO SKELETON. DURING THIS TIME THE CRABS BODY IS GEL LIKE AND VERY SENSITIVE TO DISTURBANCE/DAMAGE). IT IS MY HOPE THAT H. MILES WILL BE ABLE TO EAT ANY MITES ON THE MOLTERS.

TEMP OF ENCLOSURES 80F
HUMIDITY OF ENCLOSURES 80%

HOW LONG WILL H. MILES SURVIVE IN THESE CONDITIONS? HOW LIKELY IS IT THAT H. MILES WILL REPRODUCE?

OTHER MEMBERS OF THE HERMIT CRAB ASSOCIATION HAVE USED H. MILES WITH GREAT EFFECTS. IT HAS BEEN KNOWN TO EAT THE MITES CAUSING THE INFESTATION AND THEN DIE OFF ONCE IT HAS NO MORE MITES TO EAT... ROUGHLY HOW LONG WILL THEY LIVE?

Thanks in advance!

[wodesorel]

The mites will be distributed through the media that they send - be it wood shavings or peat moss, so I would just take a few spoonfuls of the media and place it directly on your sand after the house is dark for the night. Make sure to spread it out a bit throughout the tank so they get to all corners faster. You could try setting some aside for later, but the snake keepers swear by making sure that all of the mites go into affected tanks immediately so you get the total bang for the cost as they will die out over time if kept away from a food source.

The mites won't bury in any type of substrate deeper than 1/2 inch. If they can find food sources in the tank they should be around long enough to get the molters when they come back up. They'll eat anything, including wood mites, so they should be around for a while.

Tank conditions are like greenhouse conditions, so they should do great. They will reproduce as long as there is a food source - when the food dies out so do the mites. Lifespan is around 13 days - shorter when it's warmer, so once they've eaten everything available they'll die out within 2 weeks.

[tigermoon89]

How stressful will their presence be on the crabs?

So far I have bathed 14 out of 30 crabs. These are the ones that are up on the surface fresh from molting. They show no signs of having been disturbed during their molt. They are healthy and active. I haven't found anything on them in the baths.

The infected crab was in the tank for 1 day and one night. I did see a mite crawl on the tank glass-but other than that- I'm turning up with nothing (atleast nothing noticeable). The mites that were on the Jumbo pp were very hard to detect and threadlike. One of them sort of moved like an inch worm in the water- and quite a few came off of him during the bath this afternoon- I just gave him another bath and didn't see anything like that this time.
I'm not even confident that I could see something like what I saw on him earlier in the main tank... but like I said I haven't found anything or seen any moving clusters.

So with that in mind- how invasive or likely to stress the crabs out are these mites? Would it be worth it to introduce them as a preventative/ cautionary measure? I know for sure they can be used for the crabs from LHC and my infested crabs from petsmart.

[tigermoon89]

Update: I have gone through my entire 125gal tank- it is now 9:30 and I've been at it since 2!! The mite issue isn't as severe as I first thought- so far I haven't found anything other than what was found on the Jumbo. Moss appears to be clear as do all of my crabs on the surface (16 out of 30). So I have decided to cancel the order for H. Miles and just do a deep clean. Having a larger tank has it's benefits but in situations like this it's an absolute nightmare!


I don't know what was on the Jumbo PP but it seems to have just stayed with him- whatever it was came off of him in large numbers during the first bath. I gave him another bath and he seems clean but I'm keeping him in iso.

[tigermoon89]

Update:

So far my 125gal seems to be clear.
Unfortunately the jumbo crab doesn't seem to be fairing well. He just sits in a corner behind the mopani wood and is pretty lethargic. He came from bad conditions at petsmart (over crowded tank, disgusting water dish that was completely black and only 2 or 3cm deep, soaked EE that was only a couple cm deep, humidity at 60% and that's the highest I've ever seen them have it). I keep water dishes and a food dish near him. Any other suggestions for this guy?


As for the Straws from LHC:

I treated them as directed (sterile environment and salt water bath 3x a day followed by stress coat bath) for 4 days. They were becoming to stressed and a couple are pretty lethargic, so I stopped treatment a day early- one has a molt sac poor guy Each bath has come out clean. Their fresh and salt water dishes are clean. No mites on the glass or food. So I upgraded them to a 20gal with EE as substrate so that I can have a better chance of seeing any mites. It's hard to pick them out on white paper towels. I also reduced their bathing to one time a day because they really seemed to need a break and I don't want to stress them since everything has been turning out clear.

I do see a few white spots that look odd on their joints but it's really hard to tell if it's just coloring or a mite that has attached on to it. Does anyone have any pics of what mites look like on the leg joints of a hermit crab?

The thing that worries me is that when I first bathed them everything turned out clean. When the crabs switched shells I (immediately after being placed in iso) I grabbed the old shells and washed them out- that's when I found five mites- those things move quickly too!

On the plus side since bathing 3 have changed shells and the old shells are turning up clean. (I put shells in periodically- I don't leave them in so that I know when the crabs change they have changed into a mite free shell and I can check the old ones).

Can anyone that has dealt with mites (the harmful ones) tell me how you knew for sure when the crabs were mite free?
Do you have any other treatment suggestions?

[tigermoon89]

bump

[sdevine]

so this morning I bathe one of the small straws I've had for weeks now and once again he is completely clean. He's been clean every bath and the most active by far so I put him into my tank. Now this is on my way out the door so I just left the bowl on the counter. Just now when I'm puttering around in the kitchen and I get ready to pour out the bowl I see movement. OMG could they have actually hatched in salt water?????? They are much smaller than the ones I have been seeing and there is a cluster of them together. I have bathed this guy for weeks and have never seen a single one. What now??? Do I pluck him back out of my big tank?? Do I just go ahead and order some predatory mites????

Hey Wodesorel-----how goes your mitey crew?

[tigermoon89]

I'm not sure if the mites have a way of attaching the eggs to the crabs body- but if the eggs stay in the back of the shell you can try this:

Periodically place clean shells into the tank and wait for the crabs to show interest and change shells. This way you have more of a chance of getting mites out of the tank by removing the old shell and checking for mites.

After each session I soak the shells that were placed into the tank in double strength salt water. Rinse with dechlor water before placing them back in at the next session. I do this after each bathing session. I also change out the paper towel substrate and rinse the hides in hot water nightly.

So far I haven't seen anything on my crabs since the 2nd bath (found 5mites that rinsed out of the shell after the crabs swapped shells).

[tigermoon89]

Since they are babies and hard to see I'd recommend ordering the predatory mites.
Good Luck!

[tigermoon89]

I just caved and ordered H. Miles- I can't take it anymore- I just saw what juvenile mites look like- those things are freakin tiny!

[sdevine]

I think the ones I found in the bowl are food mites, looked closely I'm not finding any on crabs, but I see them in my worm castings. I still need to recheck the LHC ruggies and violas but the little suckers have moved the substrate around and gone under it so I'm trying to let them destress a bit.

[tigermoon89]

The H. Miles arrived today!