Mite explosion

This is a general inquiry really, more than just carpet pythons, etc. But has anyone ever experienced a mite explosion over night? I had a mite issue arise with some new arrivals that had been in QT for a few weeks with no signs. Once I moved them into the new area, they ended up having a few mites show up, I thought it was bad and treated like crazy, but apparently I only had a handful and nothing major and they were cleaned up in no time.

Now I'm sitting here some nearly 4-5 weeks later, and over night I checked on my coastal jag today and as soon as I grabbed her mites fell ALL over my hand in high numbers. She was not in her water, acted no different than normal, and had no signs of irritation. I'm assuming this was extremely recent as yesterday this problem was non-existent.

Ok - got on it - placed her in a tub, sprayed her with reptile relief (worked amazing for killing these punks!) let her sit in there for about 20 minutes while I cleared her cage out, sprayed it with reptile spray (not PAM since I was slightly worried about fumes since I was not moving the cage YET. Substrate went in the garbage, fixtures went in a garbage bag and were sprayed with reptile relief and then PAM and are placed outside till tomorrow when I will bleach and then rinse them. Took the snake out, gave her a nice 88 degree bath and soaked all the dead mites off of her. I then held her body in the water for a little bit to drown any stragglers, that got the better part of the rest, one more light spray with reptile relief, and she went back in the enclosure. Bowl and one hide were sterelized immediately and sprayed with reptile relief (Not the water bowl obviously). And now it's fingers crossed . . .

So has anyone experienced this highly random of an explosion of mites before? I checked my entire collection after I changed clothes and took a shower and moved my clothes to the laundry room, not in that order. The rest of the snakes are AOK. I really want to PAM the entire room and just bag all the snakes up for a few hours tomorrow while it airs out. I have read a lot of different things about using PAM, and some say its OK to use with the snakes in the enclosure . .. many say its not. Then as I was watching BHB's channel, Snake Bytes TV, he as well suggested spraying PAM directly in the enclosure and leave the snake in there. . . Has ANYONE done this and been ok? I am concerned with Jag syndromes showing up after something like that, based on an article wrote by ACReptiles regarding Jag Syndrome and chemicals which trigger the effects. None of my jags or spyders have any wobble or neuro signs and I'd love to keep it that way.

So here we go, what else am I missing? Since this is only the second time in my career to deal with these buggers, let me know. I've read most of the posts, but I'm still curious as apparently something went wrong . . .

I DID visit an exotic store yesterday where mites were HEAVILY present and handled 2 snakes. However, I did NOT handle any of my collection when I arrived home, and it was FAR after the exotic shop that I even made it back to my office to check on animals at 3 AM last night.

While Pam kills adults I'm fairly certain it doesnt kill the eggs. So if even a couple eggs were in there and I expect a few more than that if you had a handful you would have had to retreat a couple times to be kill off the cycle compleatly.


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Eggs would not have survived 4 weeks time IMO. Hence the confusion

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Originally Posted by reptileexperts

Eggs would not have survived 4 weeks time IMO. Hence the confusion

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Just becuase you didnt see them does mean they weren't there. You instinct to treat everyone of you snakes is a good one and you should do that. If your coastal was in the same room as the other snakes then they would most likely have them too. They might just not be noticeable in the other tanks yet. It you just treat the coastal most likey it will be another few weeks and then you would see another explosion in one of you other snakes.

It could happen. Maybe it just just a few that got out and hid somewhere untreated and then they multiplied until they were noticed again. Here's a really good write up from VPI on them.
http://www.vpi.com/publications/the_...of_snake_mites

They obviously came from somewhere and I've seen mites hid out on racks etc and then boom you've got a problem. I have not personally had a mite experience but I watched a very good friend of mine struggle with a serious mite issue and everything in the entire room had to be treated with Pam. Not just the sub but entire rack, wires, thermostats, etc.


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The eggs can lay dormant for quite some time, until certain temp/humidity requirements are met, which will trigger them to hatch.
I would not spray Provent-A-Mite (PAM) into an enclosure with the snake still in it. The label says to remove the animal and water bowl, then treat everything else.
While Provent-A-Mite does not kill the eggs, it says to re-treat approximately 15 days after the initial treatment to kill any new mites that may hatch. I would wash the furnishings first, and then treat it with PAM before returning it to the enclosure. That way, you don't wash off the treatment...

I had 2 more explosions over the last 2 days in the same cage same snake after multiple treatments. Today it finally stopped. And all visible mites are dead and the cage has been PAM'd multiple times and fully cleaned 3 times. The snake has received 3 baths and it has been kept separate from the rest. None the less, this was the first time, minutes ago, that I could pick her up and not see any mites on my hands afterwards or on her. The battles not over I imagine, but they're definitely in retreat!

NIX dilution worked for me. Kills mites and mite eggs. If the P-A-M doesn't do the trick this time try to use the NIX. I sprayed my entire rack and all of my tubs after one of my girls on QT sprung the "insta-mites" on me after she went into my rack. You should be able to get it at Wal-Mart for, I think it is $13 for one bottle or $20 for two. I keep a solution mixed now and plan on using it each time I do a full clean of the rack and tubs.

I think there are some NIX videos posted if you are not familiar with the product.

Make sure you're treating your racks, too. Mites can hide anywhere.

PAM is great, and safe when used as directed.

Yep, everything is currrently treated, and I'm just waiting it out for the next explosion, I suspect i may have one more boom before its all she wrote... If I have another large burst soon, I'll go grab some NIX and try that. I've heared a lot of good from people regarding this meathod, even though it seems there is a religious following of PAM users on this forum ;-)