# Very very very very small bugs.



## Rick (Apr 10, 2009)

I have some really small bugs in my ff cultures, i poured out some flies and i noticed some dust that came with them and when i looked at the dust it was moving! Their the smallest bugs i have ever seen. I am surprised i noticed them. Are these mites? I put my cultures on paper towels sprayed with stuff thats supose to kill mites on contact. Mabye it didnt work...


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## Dragas (Sep 4, 2008)

How old are the cultures ? Are they located near other cultures (old ones ?)


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## Rick (Apr 10, 2009)

Update: The bugs are brown. The spray is natural chemestry - reptile relief. I just sprayed it on a little pile of these buggs and it didnt kill them. They are just swiming around in it. So i geuss there not mites cause the spray says 'kills mites on contact'.


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## Rick (Apr 10, 2009)

Dragas said:


> How old are the cultures ? Are they located near other cultures (old ones ?)


Ones 2-4 weks old and another is about 1.5 months old. They are sitting right next to eachother.


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

they are probably mites anyway. throw out all cultures at 1 month, even if they continue to produce. this should help tremendously.

james


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## Rick (Apr 10, 2009)

Wait, so my stuff doesnt work?


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

ive never used the reptile relief but from my understanding it works great. perhaps someone else can chime in here.

all i can say is that from what you describe them as and the length of time you have had the cultures it sounds to me like mites. they are generally white in color though, but are incredibly small. about the size of a mark that would be left by pressing a mechanical pencil gently onto paper.(TINY!) try using the reptile relief by spraying it onto a paper towel and setting that underneath the cultures (this is how i have been told it is most effective, i assume, because i imagine that the majority of the product is some inert filler that dries leaving the potent goodness)

james


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## lamaster (Mar 22, 2008)

Definitely would get rid of cultures after a month so they don't attract to much attention from unwanted visitors.


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## Rick (Apr 10, 2009)

They are brown, not white, it looks like i have moving powdered cinnamon on the sides of my cultures. I fear that i introduced them to my viv....


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## flybuster (Feb 27, 2009)

I believe they are preadatory mites of some sort, They are the bad ones that kill cultures. The white's are grain mites do some searching this has been talked about many times. good luck


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## Jason DeSantis (Feb 2, 2006)

The brown ones he has are dust mites. I used to get them all the time and the only way to get rid of them is by throwing away cultures at about a month.
Jason


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I think one of the grain mites is more probable if he can see them with the naked eye.. 

Keep the cultures older than a month seperate from the new ones or discard them. You can really reduce them in new cultures by sterilizing the media and letting it cool. 

Do not keep the fruit fly cultures near cultures of flour beetles, grain weevils, or meal worms or the dry items used to make thier cultures as those are active sources for the mites (the same for flour or other dry grain materials). 

Ed


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## Rick (Apr 10, 2009)

I think they could be dust mites. I believe i have had grain mites before(in my gecko tank) and although they are very small they are not this small. I will do what you guys said, thanks. But i still have a question about the ones i introduced into my viv when feeeding. Is there not enough food fOr them to reproduce greatly in there or will they just not survive? Are they harmless to the frogs?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Dendrobatids comsume mites if given the chance..

Ed


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## Rick (Apr 10, 2009)

So mabye thats what they've been eating...i thought they were just crazy. Every so often i see them eat stuff thats no there, possibly mites and i just couldnt see them. Thanks alot!


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## Jason DeSantis (Feb 2, 2006)

I asked a fruit fly sponsor years ago what these bugs were and he told me they were dust mites. He also said that they will not die from the mite spray. Anyway considering they are dust mites they will probably just die if introduced to the humid tank. They thrive on warm dry heat and usually clear up in the summer months.
Jason


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The size is the reason I have some doubts as to it being a dust mite as dust mites are typically not viisible to the unaided eye from House Dust Mites, HYG-2157-97
quote"House dust mites, due to their very small size (250 to 300 microns in length) and translucent bodies, are not visible to the unaided eye"endquote I used this rather than the wikipedia page as wikipedia didn't have a reference.. 

I have some doubts as to them dying off if introduced into a humid tank see SpringerLink - Journal Article for humidity requirements....while the conditions are not ideal, they are not too far outside the preferred conditions. 

Ed


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## crentania (Jul 22, 2008)

You guys kill me some days. Really. 

Rick, they're either dust mites, grain mites or some other random mite. In any case! They're mites that aren't being killed by your spray.  Throw the infected cultures out, scour the entire area (probably with some good bleach!) and start some new cultures. Be sure to keep them away from each other, and throw them away at one month (I STILL have problems with this. I usually just put them in another room til they get too infested and finally die off by themselves. I can't kill on purpose! Hehehe)


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## earthfrog (May 18, 2008)

Just make new cultures every two weeks. Move them to a different room, use a new start of flies from a different supplier and don't feed the frogs from the oldest culture first so you don't cross contaminate them with mites possibly. 

If you can't see the individual mite, but rather a mass of them, it is probably mutant cinnamon living in your cultures or a mass of baby mites---a ridiculous amount. If you can see the individual mite bodies, it is probably just grain mites.


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## Rick (Apr 10, 2009)

earthfrog said:


> Just make new cultures every two weeks. Move them to a different room, use a new start of flies from a different supplier and don't feed the frogs from the oldest culture first so you don't cross contaminate them with mites possibly.
> 
> If you can't see the individual mite, but rather a mass of them, it is probably mutant cinnamon living in your cultures or a mass of baby mites---a ridiculous amount. If you can see the individual mite bodies, it is probably just grain mites.


Are there any ways to prevent mutant cinnamon from infesting your cultures?


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## earthfrog (May 18, 2008)

Rick said:


> Are there any ways to prevent mutant cinnamon from infesting your cultures?


Irradiate them with an ultrasound device such as a doppler, the same they use for irradiating babies in utero... 
haha, I wish...none that I know of...do you mist your cultures, anyway? If they're dry, it's VERY unlikely, but it could be spider mites...they HATE moisture.


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## pl259 (Feb 27, 2006)

The mite paper really only keeps the mites from crawling from one culture to the next. The mites and/or their eggs are transfered with the FFs everytime you make a new culture. The mites have something like a 28-30day life cycle, hence the 1 month rule. But it won't rid you of mites since they are transfered in the course of making new cultures.

In order to get rid of them, you have to either start with mite free cultures and FFs, or treat the cultures and/or FFs that are used to make the next batch. There are some chemical treatments for use inside the cultures, which don't affect the FFs. There is also a dusting treatment for the FFs to be used before making new cultures. It basically involves repeatably dusting the infected FFs, placing them in a sieve over a cup, and rapping the sieve on the cup so the mites fall into the cup. After doing this several times, the "cleaned" FFs can be put in to the new fresh, new culture.


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## Rick (Apr 10, 2009)

pl259 said:


> The mite paper really only keeps the mites from crawling from one culture to the next. The mites and/or their eggs are transfered with the FFs everytime you make a new culture. The mites have something like a 28-30day life cycle, hence the 1 month rule. But it won't rid you of mites since they are transfered in the course of making new cultures.
> 
> In order to get rid of them, you have to either start with mite free cultures and FFs, or treat the cultures and/or FFs that are used to make the next batch. There are some chemical treatments for use inside the cultures, which don't affect the FFs. There is also a dusting treatment for the FFs to be used before making new cultures. It basically involves repeatably dusting the infected FFs, placing them in a sieve over a cup, and rapping the sieve on the cup so the mites fall into the cup. After doing this several times, the "cleaned" FFs can be put in to the new fresh, new culture.


I purchased a new culture and threw out the old ones.


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## Rick (Apr 10, 2009)

earthfrog said:


> Irradiate them with an ultrasound device such as a doppler, the same they use for irradiating babies in utero...
> haha, I wish...none that I know of...do you mist your cultures, anyway? If they're dry, it's VERY unlikely, but it could be spider mites...they HATE moisture.


Haha, i do mist my cultures every once in awhile.


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## Rick (Apr 10, 2009)

Sorry for bumping an old thread but i think its important. I found some new mites in my cultures again, yay! Although these are different than the mites i had before. They are white and not brown, and they are much bigger. During my observations i noticed they don't really harm the culture at all. The other mites would stick to the flies legs and clump all over them which eventually destroyed the culture.(Flies cant breed with clumps of mites attacking them!) So this leads me to believe that i had dust mites, mutant cinnamon or some other really small bug and i now have grain mites.


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