# White mites



## Austin P (May 13, 2009)

Well I was going through all of my springtail cultures, And at first I thought I had a really good Pink Springtail culture going, but upon closer examination it turns out there is about 5000 white mites in there. Could these be used to feed frogs, or should I throw em out?

Thanks, Austin


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Yes, you can feed them to your frogs. Try to be careful that they don't spread to other springtail and ff cultures. That's your only real danger.
Doug


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

If you do feed them to your frogs, feed them sparingly.
I experimented a while back and it ended up that I fed some valuable thumbnail froglets to my mites.
If they are like the white mites I picked up a while back, throw em out and don't look back...those things are tough...still fighting to get rid of them.


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## Austin P (May 13, 2009)

Thanks, Is there any danger from them getting loose in the viv?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

What grain based foods are you feeding your springtails. That is probably your source contamination. They will compete with the springtails for food. 

Ed


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Austin P said:


> Thanks, Is there any danger from them getting loose in the viv?


There are two ways to look at it...they possibly add to the diversity of the microfauna (I say possibly, because in my experience, they will often end up out competing the springtails).

From a person who is (and has been for about 3 months) fighting a major mite problem, trust me, you don't want to go down that road, putting the mites in the viv potentially gives them a place to reproduce.

I'm sure that someone will point out that in the wild, mites are a major food for amphibians...thing is, they don't culture as effeciently as say, the fruit flies or springtails they predate/compete with.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Dancing frogs said:


> There are two ways to look at it...they possibly add to the diversity of the microfauna (I say possibly, because in my experience, they will often end up out competing the springtails).
> 
> From a person who is (and has been for about 3 months) fighting a major mite problem, trust me, you don't want to go down that road, putting the mites in the viv potentially gives them a place to reproduce.
> 
> I'm sure that someone will point out that in the wild, mites are a major food for amphibians...thing is, they don't culture as effeciently as say, the fruit flies or springtails they predate/compete with.


 
Hi Brian,

Having seen several grain mite outbreaks where it looked like brown whipped cream heaving out of the top of the infected cultures (one of which was a mealworm culture in a 3 gallon bucket).. I'm not willing to go that far. .. 

Ed


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## Austin P (May 13, 2009)

Thanks guys, theyre frozen


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Has anyone tried flooding them?

I have one of poison beauties lovely spring cultures. It got mites (for the record, it did not have mites when I received it). Really great culture and don't want to lose it. So, I flooded it with water, to above the level of the media. The springs are floating. What are the mites doing? Do they also float? Swim? Rushing for cover in my other cultures? Hmm think I'll put the culture in a container of water. 

I'll let you know how it looks in the morning.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

frogface said:


> Has anyone tried flooding them?
> 
> I have one of poison beauties lovely spring cultures. It got mites (for the record, it did not have mites when I received it). Really great culture and don't want to lose it. So, I flooded it with water, to above the level of the media. The springs are floating. What are the mites doing? Do they also float? Swim? Rushing for cover in my other cultures? Hmm think I'll put the culture in a container of water.
> 
> I'll let you know how it looks in the morning.


That's a great idea. I'll bet the spider mites will cling to the substrate. So you flood it and pour the springs off. Then transfer them to a new culture. Certainly worth trying.
Doug


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

They shouldn't be spider mites as those are typically plant pests. There are a number of mites that end up in springtail cultures ranging from the grain mite to any of a number of detrivore mites to even some that may be predatory on the springtails. 

It is quite possible that the mites are quite capable of floating on the water surface as the tension will support them. If they cannot access their food they will more than likely spread out... 

Ed


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## earthfrog (May 18, 2008)

Spider mites don't do well in water. They are tinier than other mites and tend to get stuck and die. Plus as Ed said, they are plant pests (of living, green plants).


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Ed said:


> They shouldn't be spider mites as those are typically plant pests. There are a number of mites that end up in springtail cultures ranging from the grain mite to any of a number of detrivore mites to even some that may be predatory on the springtails.
> 
> Ed


Thanks, I knew that. I'd say slip of the tongue but I guess it would be a slip of the brain. Kids would say I'm getting old!
Doug


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Pumilo said:


> Thanks, I knew that. I'd say slip of the tongue but I guess it would be a slip of the brain. Kids would say I'm getting old!
> Doug


Happens to the best of us.. I'm even succombing as I get older... 

Ed


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## earthfrog (May 18, 2008)

Ed said:


> Happens to the best of us.. I'm even succombing as I get older...
> 
> Ed


I hear crossword puzzles, sudoku and eating blueberries help...LOL


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

earthfrog said:


> I hear crossword puzzles, sudoku and eating blueberries help...LOL


Given that I do all of the above.... it still happens.. 

We freeze about 20 lbs of blueberries each summer from the local farms... I make a pretty decent buckle. 

Ed


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Update on drowning the mites. Purely anecdotal. I have run no tests to verify my results. 

So, I flooded that culture to the top with water. Put the lid back on it and forgot about it, figuring it was a lost cause anyway. Chris/rcteem looked at it when he came to get his frogs a few days later. Mites were still crawling around the rim, trying to get out of the container.

A week after that, I needed to use the container. So I opened it up, saw some mites crawling around on the inside of the lid, saw the majority of them floating on the top of the water, with the springs all over them like they were eating dead mites (not certain of this, it was all too tiny for me to see clearly). 

Rinsed the mites off the lid, put leaves in the water, one a time, and the springs climbed onto them. Placed these leaves into a new container. 

Today, I have springs in that container but I have yet to see any mites. I would be very surprised if there were none but I haven't seen any yet. It's been a couple weeks since they were moved into this new container. 

Your mileage may vary


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Checked again today. Still no mites. Not sure why.


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## Eric Walker (Aug 22, 2009)

Mite cycles can come and go just like spring blooms. I had a white tropical woodlice culture that had mites covering the top of the subsrtate. I could not get rid of them. So, I tried spraying some of the natural chemestry mite spray directly in the culture onto of the substrate. gave it some time with no result and repeated. after some time of the mites still going hard they finally died out. they have yet to return in that culture. I have seen them come and go in other cultures as well.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

I tried drowning some mites myself. I picked one large piece of charcoal out of a culture. It had 20 plus mites and 20 plus springs on it. Put it in a container and slowly added room temp water. All the springs instantly floated to the top and half a dozen mites floated. The rest of the mites apparently clung to the coal and drowned. I repeatedly checked the experiment for 36 hours. After 36 hours all the springs were alive but unfortunately, the half dozen mites were still alive too. One more point, after about 24 hours into the experiment, I began repeatedly stirring and agitating the water hoping that if the mites went down, maybe they wouldn't come up. They kept coming up.
After 36 hours I called the experiment a failure and dumped it. Now, after reading Frogface's post, I wonder if I need to try it again, but longer.
Doug


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

My culture was a coco fiber and chopped sphagnum mix. So, when it flooded, there was no substrate floating, only critters. 

It sat for a couple weeks (guessing, without going back to my previous posts to count).


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

frogface said:


> My culture was a coco fiber and chopped sphagnum mix. So, when it flooded, there was no substrate floating, only critters.
> 
> It sat for a couple weeks (guessing, without going back to my previous posts to count).


Thanks, I'll set up another small test experiment.
Doug


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