# what temps kill mite eggs?



## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

I`m microwaving my coco peat and containers to kill possible mites and eggs in the medium and washed cups. What temp should I be trying for and how long?


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## Frogsarethashit (Jan 14, 2007)

One would think that the microwave would kill anything alive. What about going the other way and freezing them?


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## Catfur (Oct 5, 2004)

A microwave oven creates a standing (i.e. not moving), microwave, which is an electromagnetic oscillation, the wave usually has a wavelength of several centimeters, if you place something in the microwave oven, and it doesn't move in the oven, there will be hot and cold spots (at intervals of several cm), if anything is in the cold spots that is small, it will not be cooked (like mite or insect eggs). Insect eggs are often pretty heat resistant anyways,


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## TPopovich (May 7, 2004)

Doesn't the microwave heat the water contained in things by vibrating the molecules ? Any thing with moisture in it will be steamed so I doubt anything could find a cool spot and survive.


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## lizardstowe (Sep 6, 2005)

Aaron,
I've been searching for the same fix. A few months back I set up two 10gal tanks for frogs I was planning on getting later. I wanted to let the tanks "grow" in. I bought some dry spag moss from lowes, which I boiled before putting in the tanks. About a week later there were mites every where!! Little white ones I tried everything from plant extracts to UV lighting, eventually I dismantled the tanks and started over this time using Repti bark. One thing you might want to try is micro waving the peat in a tub that you can saturate with water to which you add a bit of apple cider vinegar. The heat and the acid may greatly decrease the number of hatch able eggs. Just make sure the entire contents of the tub get really hot!!

Matt


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

I've seen a fly survive a microwave...couldn't belive it, but it did.

If I wan't to sterilize something...I don't monkey around, I use a pressure cooker, though plastic containers may not survive that.
When I tried pressure cooking set up (without flies obviously) fly cultures, the cups held up, but the lids did not, but that was with the old style white plastic vented cover, the newer ones may hold up better.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

I use wet coco peat and got it up to 180f w/out melting the cups. I guess I could bake the coco peat. it`s not so much the cups but the stored/wet coco peat that I believe has been attracting mites. I wash the cups in soapy water and dry them. I wanted to do things 1 at a time to try and find out where they got in from but I guess I`ll just have to trash the yeast, store everything on mite paper and bake my coco peat as I go. It`s either that or the pill bottle of yeast I was feeding from. 
So, since I don`t have a pressure cooKer handy baking at 200f for an hour?
Can`t you get used pressure cookers at slvation army and such? what`s the temps and times in a pc?


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Don't know what the temps in the pressure cooker end up at...basicly being under pressure, you raise the boiling temp of the water.
If labs and hopitals use a version (autoclave) of a pressure cooker, you know it will kill mites.
I just bring it up to 15 psi, and then shut the burner off (the pressure then gradually falls, and the thing stays hot for quite a while after) for springtail media or leaf litter, or I leave the pressure up longer for things like solid chunks of wood...maybee 10 minutes or so.


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## lacerta (Aug 27, 2004)

Aaron, What is the issue with the mites? These guys are everywhere. Most are innocuous, and my frogs even eat them judging from all the mite parts I find in fecals. Controlling the adults is not that hard to do. At least in FF cultures. I have had good luck lining the shelving unit I put all my fruit fly cultures on with insecticidal paper. I store my yeast and dry FF medium separately in a fridge to keep it dry and cold. Obviously if you can reduce the amount of adult mites you will get less eggs. The eggs are hard to kill. Also many types of mites can enter into a cyst-like state (hypobiosis) during periods of environmental duress, only to come active again when conditions become favorable. These are often found in substrates such as dry sphagnum and orchid mixes. Here is an interesting link that talks about the different mites that affect stored foods. These are the ones that I find most often in FF cultures.
http://www.the-piedpiper.co.uk/th7g.htm 
Those I find in my vivs are different and are mostly orabatid mites and other soil and plant mites. 
To illustrate how durable eggs can be, I often find mite eggs in PDF feces. During en vitro culturing of parasitic nematode larva, it is not uncommon for mite eggs to survive their journey through a frog's digestive system and to hatch out. The autoclave is probably the most reliable method though it may not be practical depending on the amount of material you are dealing with. The link above talks also about fumigation as the best method for killing all stages but don't know how practical that would be for your purposes or what sort of toxic residue may result (or maybe none). 
George


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

lacerta said:


> Aaron, What is the issue with the mites? George


If you ever have the misfortune, you will find mites in springtails are devastating, totally yeilding a culture useless. Don't know how they get in, but they do, and eventually you have a mite culture.
I'm trying mite paper under my cultures now.

A guy I know said he had luck going to all charcoal cultures vs. "soil" type mixes.

"tropical" springtails (the white kind that like it drier) seem to be more resistant to the mites than the standard temparate variety (fingers crossed).


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## lacerta (Aug 27, 2004)

Ahhh. I get it now. Peat cups, springtails. I have never cultured springtails. I know that there are many predatory mites that feed on springtails. I see the issue now. 
George


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

yep, those are the buggers I`m talking about. I lost 30 of 45 cultures recently and that can`t happen w/ all the pumilio I have, esp escuados. 
I`m just wondering how it happened in all at once. Either they got into the food or they migrated to the moist coco peat when it got real dry in here when the heat went on. 
I culture the tropicals in a cooler/incubator and the other types of springs and woodlice I culture on the top shelf on mite paper. the top shelf cultures never got mites and i culture them on leca so i think they migrated to the coco peat in a bucket on the floor. I hate to think they could`ve found there way into the cooler and into closed tupperware.


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## rbrightstone (Apr 14, 2004)

I remember reading a report in Scientific American 10 or 12 years ago that mite eggs had been discovered on the ceramic tiles of the shuttle that have been exposed to the vacume and radiation of outerspace and the heat of reentry, and several hatched when placed culture. I am unsure of what type they were, but as stated earlier, there are many different mites. Good luck, and keep us informed.


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