BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Hey guys,

So i had Raptor out today and low and behold as soon as i put him back in his cage, my sister said she saw a little tiny white bug on his head. I looked and saw nothing, so staked out his head with camera phone ready and caught the bug crawling on him.

from what you all can see, and i know its not much since its a cell phone crappy quality video, can you all give me some info. I was going to rush to pets mart and get some type of "mite ridding" product but they are closed untill tomorrow! also raptor went under his rock for the night so i wont be able to work on this untill the morning.

all of his scales look fine, none are sticking up or anything like that and this is the frst one i have ever seen on him or in the cage for that matter. Where do these things come from? I dont take raptor outside the house and always try to keep his enclosure clean with spot cleaning and replacing substrate where need be.

This is my first experience with mites of any kind and really dont know what to do. Can you all give me some info on what product i should purchase and how to apply it? how do i rid Raptor of the mites that are on him once i complelty clean out his enclosure tomorrow.

any help would be greatly apprechiated!

Video of mite (kind of hard to see but hope u all can see the bug im talking about moving across his head. From the video the bug is on "your" top left side of raptors head and crawls down toward his ear.)

http://s16.photobucket.com/albums/b2/ka ... =mites.mp4

thanks for your alls help

I havent dealt with mites for several years now, but that seems to be moving too fast to be a mite.

But really, I really cant tell what I am looking at from the video other than a white blur quickly crawl off his head.

ReptileKing wrote:I havent dealt with mites for several years now, but that seems to be moving too fast to be a mite.

But really, I really cant tell what I am looking at from the video other than a white blur quickly crawl off his head.

I understand completly i just tried to catch a glimpse of it but its so hard with a crappy cell phone and such a tiny insect. i saw the same one or another crawling on his water bowel but it was just one, i dont see any in the substrate or anything. idk i know i saw a gnat in his cage a couple days ago but dint think anything of it. but yes that white blur crawling across his head is what i am seeing. sorry for the quality

Sounds like a springtail.

any more help guys? i know its not much to work with. im off to the store to get new bedding and mite spray.

i took another video today of the said mite, hope maybe this one is a little better... this time I saw it crawl off him and onto his rock. its a little white spec on the rock look closely and you will see it walking around... could this be wood mites from repti bark I use as substrate and i have just never noticed them before?

go to 15 seconds and look at the right side of the video (video is actually on its side, but according to the video the right side of the rock which is actually the bottom of the rock if the vid was the correct layout on screen....phew lol) you will see a small white speck walking across the rock. again dont know if this is the same one from last night or another.

http://s16.photobucket.com/albums/b2/ka ... -07-39.mp4

i have no idea what these are, but I bought a leopard gecko years ago who had these. I just got rid of the subsrtate, deep cleaned all the tank accessories and the tank and kept spraying him with the mite killer you get from petsmart. after the deep cleaning they disapeared for good.

i bought some jurassiMite spray from petsmart, is this stuff ok to use on BTS?



http://www.jurassipet.com/Products/JurassiMite.html

Provent a mite is the best imo
Also... Normally mites are black or red.

In my experience the mites were always black and fairly slow moving. They gathered at the eyes and ears mostly, also in armpits and on the roof of my containers at the time.

I can't view the new video on my cell phone however I agree with everyone else. Have you triedtouching the bugs? I agree with whoever mentioned springtails. If that is what it is they are actually a harmless beneficial insect that will nreak down left over food a.d poop

Well i still dont know what those little bugs were but i hope i got rid of em. Thank you all so much for all the help and info, im gonna look into the "good bugs" a little more, hopefully to find out if thats what was in Raptors tank.

Anyways, I decided Raptor's tank was due for a full clean, so what better time to clean everything then now, here is what i did.

1. Ran to pets mart got 2 big bags of Repti Bark, and some JurassiMite spray for the bugs i have been seeing.

2. stripped Raptors tank of everything inside including old substrate and threw it away. Also vacumed up dust and the small bits i could not get on my own.

3. Mixed up a (1/2 cup bleach to 1 gallon of water) solution and sprayed down the empty tank. let it sit for a minute then took it outside and sprayed again for good measure.




4. Got the hose, sprayed out the tank, and added some dish soap inside and scrubbed it down with a sponge to help clean a bit more and rid the tank of the bleach smell.



5. Time to clean all the things in his cage (water bowl, corner bowl, and basking rock. cleaned the sink out and filled it with water, some of the bleach solution, and some soap to clean basking rock and the coner bowl. Then went back outside and sprayed them with regular water to rid the bleach smell as well. Let sit to air dry for a few minutes.



6. Cleaned his water bowl with just soap and water in the sink. took outside washed off and then let air dry as well.



7. New substrate in the tank and then misted the substrate with JurassiMite. mixed substrate up and sprayed again for good measure.

8. Sprayed JurassiMite on a paper towel and rubbed Raptor down with it, he didnt like that too much haha.

9. Put all stuff back in the tank including Raptor. Raptor looked at me and was like WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY HOME??!!

10 . Now since thats all done, time to move on to some grub! Pedigree dog food, sliced collard greens, yellow squash, raspberries, and topped off with some Fluker's Calcium powder with D3





....My cat Carmal, wishes he had such an awesome house to play in lol


If you all are still reading this, thanks for reading! again thank you Bluetongueskinks.net for all your help

Jurassic mite isn't considered dangerous I just have heard it isn't that effective on mites. Hopefully you will have better luck.

SapphireTigress wrote:Jurassic mite isn't considered dangerous I just have heard it isn't that effective on mites. Hopefully you will have better luck.

thanks, yeah its all i could get a hold of on such short notice. gonna order me some "preven a mite" and "repti relief" for the next cleaning. gonna try and deep clean the whole tank every month or so from now on.

Trust me, I know all about having to get what you can when you can. If you do end up ever seeing black or red dot type bugs and treat for mites, just keep in mind that the life cycle of a mite is 45 days. Treat using the directions on thr PAM for that duration and you should be golden.

SapphireTigress wrote:Trust me, I know all about having to get what you can when you can. If you do end up ever seeing black or red dot type bugs and treat for mites, just keep in mind that the life cycle of a mite is 45 days. Treat using the directions on thr PAM for that duration and you should be golden.

Everything I have read states that the life cycle is roughly 2 weeks when kept at bluey temps. They can last up to roughly 40 days when kept at cooler temps. So I would recommend retreating in 2 weeks, not a little over a month.

That's probably true reptileking...ths was info I used to successfully treat my ball python at higher and more humid temps. Didn't take into account temp difference and what not for skinks, I also tend to be over worried because I HATEHAAAAATE HATE mites(yukyuk)