# Fruit fly mites and ball pythons?



## purechaotic (Mar 4, 2013)

So I have been doing research on cultures along with everything else. When I got to the mite part I then started cross researching fruit fly mites and ball pythons. I can not find a direct answer just some people saying their ball python has mites and they had what appeared to be fruit flies in their tanks. I am almost OCD about keeping my collection clean. My quarantine procedure is months in a separate room I won't touch my established collection if I even open the quarantine tubs to look at them. I know that it could happen one day (knock on wood) but honestly I will freak the F out when it does. 

So honest opinion or facts from you established dart froggers that have reptiles. Have your snakes every gotten mites? Do you think it was from your cultures? Also if you do keep reptiles have you had a mite outbreak and don't know where it came from? I just want to get all the info I can before I go ahead with anything and this would be a big red flag for me to rethink everything a lot more.


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## Reef_Haven (Jan 19, 2011)

The most common mite in fruit fly cultures are grain mites. Grain mites are not parasitic and do not feed on snakes or flies for that matter. It's still a good idea to keep all fly cultures on mite paper.


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## XxExoticPsychExX (Mar 12, 2012)

^^^^What Reef Haven said.

I currently have my boyfriend's snake in the same room as my dart frogs and fruit fly cultures and it has been that way for about 3 months. However, I do not keep any of them on the same shelves or furniture and I wash up before handling one after the other. I have had one outbreak of grain mites in one fruit fly culture within the past year, but that did not transfer to the rest of my cultures or the snake's enclosure.

I would just advise you to wash up before and after handling each item, enclosure, animal, etc. and keep them in locations separate enough to keep mites from wanting to travel to the other in addition to periodically checking for parasitic mites just in case.

Edit: And continuously keep all these areas clean!


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## dartfanatic (Sep 24, 2012)

I can tell you 100% that you will not have any issues with fruit fly mites on your ball pythons or visa versa. I worked at a shop with a huge ball collection in which the breeder room was right next to, and there were sometimes fly cultures sitting on, our fly display. Besides that the type of mites that prey on ball pythons don't even mess with almost any other reptiles, besides snakes/skinks and a few others. The fly mites must be extremely tiny to prey upon a fly, therefore getting under the scales is easy but penetrating the skin is likely a challenge. 

Overall, I wouldn't worry even a bit. If you are get a towel and spray it with nix or prevent o mite and keep the fly cultures on top of those.


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## purechaotic (Mar 4, 2013)

Reef_Haven said:


> The most common mite in fruit fly cultures are grain mites. Grain mites are not parasitic and do not feed on snakes or flies for that matter. It's still a good idea to keep all fly cultures on mite paper.


Awesome thanks I will read up on grain mites a bit.



XxExoticPsychExX said:


> ^^^^What Reef Haven said.
> 
> I currently have my boyfriend's snake in the same room as my dart frogs and fruit fly cultures and it has been that way for about 3 months. However, I do not keep any of them on the same shelves or furniture and I wash up before handling one after the other. I have had one outbreak of grain mites in one fruit fly culture within the past year, but that did not transfer to the rest of my cultures or the snake's enclosure.
> 
> ...


Awesome good to know, the dart frogs won't even be on the same floor as my bp's in a few months. I get a dedicated reptile room and it will be heated to 78-80 degrees ambient year round so I will be keeping them in the living room. One of the reasons the wife has agreed to it is I said I would start with a smaller tank and if she likes it enough she will let me do a large display tank. So super stoked and really researching everything before I get into it, so I can make her fall in love with the little setup to get the big one lol. I use hand sanitizer in between each animal. I know you don't really touch the frogs but would it still be ok, if I had that on my hands when I feed or rearrange plants etc?


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## frog dude (Nov 11, 2011)

dartfanatic said:


> I can tell you 100% that you will not have any issues with fruit fly mites on your ball pythons or visa versa.


Vice versa of ff mites on ball pythons would be ball pythons on ff mites. That would be one squished bug!


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