# little white bugs



## Guest

I noticed that in my vivarium there are little tiny white bugs crawling around. They look like the kind of pests you might find on plants. I hate the thought of completely starting again in my vivarium, as my daughter just set it up and gave it to me for Christmas. Is anyone familiar with these little microscopic things and do you think they are okay to leave in there? i have no idea how I could eliminate them without starting all over again with the vivarium. Thanks
Bonnie


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## Paul E. Wog

Could be mites or scale insects. The frogs will probably eat the mites but I think I remember hearing that they don't bother the scale insects. Look in the Identification forum, there should be more info there. I'd like to helo more but that is about all I can give you. I really doubt you would have to break down your viv.


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## joshsfrogs

Could be springtails as well.


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## Dancing frogs

Most bugs are good to have...if they are small enough to eat, all the better!
If you wish for a "bug free" viv (oxy-moron if you ask me) you can flood the tank with CO2 by using dry ice (Marty from mist king did this, there is a post in here somewhere where he described the technique), which evaporates into CO2 which displaces the oxygen in the tank, killing most everything that depends on oxygen.
I would guess the bugs are springtails, which are an excellent food item.


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## KeroKero

Where in the tank are these little guys running around?

If they are only/mostly on the plants, you might have a problem. If they are mostly/only on the soil/leaf litter/wood pieces then you might just have springtails, especially since its a new tank and is probibly going thru a massive mold/fungus blood (normal, no worries) in the soil which is springtail food, and their population is exploding too. Here is a pic for reference:










Those are (mostly) 2 mm adult standard springtails, there are tons of different kinds, and depending on species and/or how old the ones you are seeing are, they can be much smaller.


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## Guest

*bugs in vivarium*

but would springtails just appear in the tank if I have never had any in there? these things are literally microscopic and look like little dust grains wandering around...the size of the point of a mechanical pencil. i think they are even too small for the frogs to eat! Sounds like I may not have to worry about them though, eh? Are springtails natural to something we may have purchased?
Bonnie


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## slaytonp

It's almost impossible to identify all the tiny critters that show up in our vivarium soils, but if you can see them, so can the frogs. They can come with plants, substrates or what-have-you, and most are harmless, living on organic matter, algae, etc. There are all kinds of tiny soil mites that may live on organic matter or possibly other tiny soil organisms as well. There are also some tiny species of aphids which are plant-genus specific, but frogs love these, and it's even quite safe to collect garden aphids from fruit trees and legumes and feed them to the frogs, as they won't infect tropical plants. My new set-ups sometimes have something like what you are describing, and the frogs do lap them up. What kind of frogs do you have or are planning to get? 

I doubt they are scale insects, since these will show up on the leaves and will be covered with a waxy coating. These are usually fairly specific to one type of plant. I've had one bromeliad which became heavily infected with these, so I simply removed it and threw it away, as there is no good way to get rid of them without oily or soapy insecticides which one doesn't want to use in a viviarium. The only other pests I've encountered are slugs. I just hand pick these when I see them, wlthough it's kind of fun to bait them with beer. I've never tried the CO2 because by the time I see critters in the tank, the frogs are already established and I hate to remove them for the treatment, which would also eliminate the interesting, harmless little centipedes that invariably show up.


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## Guest

slaytonp said:


> treatment, which would also eliminate the interesting, harmless little centipedes that invariably show up.



EEEKK centipedes. I hate centipedes. They eeek me out. With their scissor tails and hard shells. Those are predatory, unless you ment millipedes. 
In anycase, 

blrose, you probably have springtails, they just kinda pop out, and some people would consider them a highly sought after food source for small frogs and froglets. Yes they are tiny tiny tiny. The best way to see if they are spring tails is by putting a few on water and see if they jump around alot. If they do, they are springtails. Good luck.

Oh, and the reason centipedes eek me out is becuase when I was young and in Colombia I was taking a shower one day, and one of those big, red and yellow colored centipedes come out from the drain. Well I told my grandpa about it and he tried to kill it with a machete, he had to hit like ten times just to break it in half.


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## slaytonp

These centipedes are the little guys, about 1 inch long or less, not the ones that attack and bite. They are supposed to live on other small insects and arthropods, but mine seem to just graze along the branches and leaf litter, eating invisible stuff. The population is always higher in a new tank, then later, one sees only an occasional one, so they don't take over. One thing is for sure, the frogs definitely don't like the taste of them. I saw a leuc go for one once, and he spit it out immediately, wiping his face off as he did so with this "blech, ptooey" look. They are definitely centipedes, not millipedes.


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## Guest

I'd guess springtails too. Plant mites usually don't actively crawl around (although they can). Usually they attach to the plant for awhile. Many of us culture springtails to feed our frogs, so you're lucky you got some freebies. 

Good advice on putting them in water to see if they jump around. Mites won't.

Cesar, I'm new to TX and I found the smaller cousin (7 inches) of the centipede found in South America. It took 3-4 hacks with an ice chipper (which we moved from MN for killing snakes) to cut it's head off.

It was beautiful; blue/black body, yellow legs and red head. But scared the cr%p out of me so it had to go.


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## Guest

runninjill said:


> I'd guess springtails too. Plant mites usually don't actively crawl around (although they can). Usually they attach to the plant for awhile. Many of us culture springtails to feed our frogs, so you're lucky you got some freebies.
> 
> Good advice on putting them in water to see if they jump around. Mites won't.
> 
> Cesar, I'm new to TX and I found the smaller cousin (7 inches) of the centipede found in South America. It took 3-4 hacks with an ice chipper (which we moved from MN for killing snakes) to cut it's head off.
> 
> It was beautiful; blue/black body, yellow legs and red head. But scared the cr%p out of me so it had to go.



Eeeeewww, I am currently lifting my feet off the floor and putting them under me on my chair. I think the one that "attacked me"(ok im exagerating) was about 7 inches too, it was probably a baby. I even hate the small ones that occasionally crawl into my 9th floor apartment in the summer months. 
I guess if I could observe one in a viv, I wouldnt mind it so much. God forbid I ever have a kid who is into cenitpedes. :roll:


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## Chondroholic

What about wood lice? I have these in all my tanks that have any wood in them. They are about 1 mm long and a silvery gray color. If that sounds like it, they are harmless and most of the thumbnails and pumilio will readily eat them.


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## slaytonp

Woodlice sounds like a pretty good guess. If you have a magnifying glass, you might be able to tell insects from mites, the latter having eight legs like spiders, and lice are particularly distinctively "louse-like."


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