I think I had a mite investation today. I was cleaning out the tank, to put in the sand that I bought yesterday. While I was dumping out the old sand, I saw a bug crawling around. I figured that it was a mite, because it was small and white. I boiled all of the decorations, bowls and shells. I gave them a bath. I cleaned the gravel in scolding hot water. I also cleaned the tank with extremely hot water. They water was dechlorinized. Anything else I should do?
you said you had gravel make sure to take that out for something elese like sand
Why the gravel? I don't think that the mites would be attracted to that. I cleaned it out with boiling water and stuff. Everything had been fine since.
-Katie Forbes Es: Mr. Krabs*Xena*Hubert*Clarice*Tank*Paras
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They're on the water dish. So far I can't find them anywhere else but I'm reading up on this here on our Forum... You can never trust anything from anywhere, or so it seems. In all my years of crabbing I haven't had this problem before (since 1984) and over the years I've used every kind of substrate possible, from sand to "jungle earth" to gravel. (The crabs when I was 11 lived on some towels in a drawer... 1986.) I bathed everyone (distilled water) and put them all into the iso tank (a.k.a. Claude the Clawless Wonder-Crab's tank). I might (mite??) have had this come up somewhere in there b/c I didn't know the DETAILS of such things until recent years. Claude meanwhile is in his own "iso" on my bed. He'd be the only one w/o mites (I hope??) b/c he's only been in the main tank every few days to use... the bigger... WATER DISH. Oh great... Now even the iso tank is suspect.
Do I go w/ the idea that these little bugs are natural parasites that use the crabs for transportation or that they're actually some sort of tick? (Transportation to and from where, I wonder...) They're really, really tiny and so far I can't see them on the crabs, just on the actual water dish. I imagine from the amount on the water dish that they'd be EVERYWHERE in there. They are not on the food dish or on anything else that I can see, except the substrate around the water dish (scooped up for a closer look on a big spoon). At this point I wish I could fumigate the entire house... do they infest anything other the tank that anyone knows of? Do they manage to survive on blankets or clothing, for instance?
Get new substrate and boil everything... and I guess I'll leave the big tank outside for about a week (all emptied out) on the back deck to "bake" it during this heat wave we're having (and hopefully some rain in there eventually too) unless anyone knows of a crab-safe detergent?
I use a mixture of "jungle earth" and beach sand personally brought back by either my parents or I from an actual beach. I used all sand originally but they like the earth a lot and I figure a mixture of the two is the closest approximation to their original, natural conditions. There's also a bit more control over conditions w/ the earth b/c it doesn't heat up so fast and drastically and it retains moisture. (Not to start a "substrate war"... just letting everyone know what mine is b/c I'm hoping for a few suggestions, since this is ALL NEW to me, besides online research... and w/ hermit crabs it seems there's a lot of mixed info out there.)
