Ugh, MITES!!

So the other day, I was taking pictures of a few of the snakes. Looking through them, I noticed one had mites in her eyes. I soaked her in a separate tub for about 30 minutes and bleached (water solution, don't worry) her tub and everything in it. The next day, I bought Reptile Relief at my local pet store and treated her with it. Tonight, I noticed that my breeding female (who is very likely gravid) had mites in her eyes, as well. So, I put both females in separate tubs, sprayed them down with Reptile Relief, bleached their tubs and everything in them, and then rinsed off both animals and put them back to bed.

As I was doing this, I noticed that the first ball to have mites no longer had them in her eyes. I treated her anyway, obviously, but when I was done, I looked over the rest of my collection. Two others, my spider male and dinker female, had mites. I don't have time to treat them and their tubs tonight, so I'll do it tomorrow, but will the bleach plus soaking and Reptile Relief work until my PAM arrives? It's all I can do right now. I still have no idea where the mites came from. Everyone is on the same bedding, so I figured that couldn't be it. Everyone is fed from the same colony of rats, and the mites have just now shown up, so I don't think it's them. There's only two things I can think of:

1) My gecko viv has some natural fauna from the live plants and soil, but they feed on his feces and stay on the soil. I've never seen any mites crawling in or out of the viv, nor have I seen them crawling on the gecko. But could it be him?

2) My forensic science/bio teacher keeps two balls in his room. He could take better care of them, but they both eat and grow and shed and are otherwise healthy. My hypothesis (albeit it's a rather large leap) is that a student in another class had one of the snakes out on my table, and that snake happened to have mites, meaning I may have transferred the mites and/or eggs to my own collection. I know, it's a pretty far-out hypothesis, but I'll be checking over his snakes tomorrow, just to be sure.


Anyway, I'll likely never find out where they came from, but regardless, will the routine I'm doing now work? I do fully plan on treating every snake in this house with PAM once it arrives, but will the bleach do the trick before it gets here?

Anything is better then nothing for the time being. Keep on doing it.

A little touch of dawn soap helps to break water's surface tension and rinse the mites off as well. Just make sure everything is clean an disinfected including all the areas around the tubs. Mites will get into every nock they can, so clean and treat the surrounding area also.

Best of luck, they are a pain but its treatable.

Personally I would just let the snake soak in a water bowl until the PAM arrives.
Reptile relief is garbage and does the same thing a bowl of water does, drown them.

All reptile keepers should own a can of PAM, mites happen...

Reptile relief is better than nothing as far as I can say. I too want to make sure you are putting Dawn in the soaking water. Also, instead of bleach, I always keep F10 on hand to clean the tubs. Good luck! Mites are very frustrating.

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Originally Posted by snakesRkewl

All reptile keepers should own a can of PAM, mites happen...

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Agreed. It's a life-saver, really!

amen - i have a can of Pam several years old - never used ;) KNOCK ON WOOD

I realise that owning PAM is something every keeper should do, but I can't just get it from any store up here; I live in Alaska. Besides, I said I had ordered some, but I need to know if what I'm doing will keep the infestation under control until the PAM arrives. So far, two more snakes have visible mites, making the total 4 out of 9 ball pythons.

I dealt with mites about a month ago. When you see it, you have to assume that every snake in your collection has mites and treat all of them. The one you don't is going to be the one where they still live. I have 5 cans of PAM stored up and I'm treating the bins monthly just in case.

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Originally Posted by hitman3303

I dealt with mites about a month ago. When you see it, you have to assume that every snake in your collection has mites and treat all of them. The one you don't is going to be the one where they still live. I have 5 cans of PAM stored up and I'm treating the bins monthly just in case.

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your head is in the right place, but keep in mind PAM is extremely potent (and depending on which country's government health agency you're paying attention to, the potential cause of seriously deleterious health risks in humans). also, a little goes a very long way. fortunately my collection has never been afflicted, and I do spray down tubs for any new arrivals as a precaution, but I've had the same can since 2008, and it's still half full. unless you're dropping by a reptile expo every weekend, combating a widespread infestation, or importing animals, I'm not sure anyone needs to plan on burning through five cans of PAM. you might be inviting more problems by overuse than you're avoiding.

to the OP, best of luck. it's a pain in the rear but hopefully your collection comes through no worse for the wear.