Oribatei mites

[mahoneyandrew]

I recently discovered these mites in a quarantine/hospital tank that I have for plants for my ball pythons bioactive enclosure. Are soil mites dangerous? I'm worried that they could have possibly entered my snakes tank. I've paid an extra penny to try a soil that doesn't need a drainage layer and the tank is heavily planted so I don't want to start over unless I absolutely have to. What should I do?

[Bogertophis]

I'm not a mite expert but I don't think you need to worry. I know there are "wood mites" too, but they don't bother snakes, so I don't think soil mites will either.
Snake mites live by sucking snake blood...other kinds of mites don't do that, they're just going to be harmless 'room-mates' as far as I know, though I have no
experience with bioactive tanks, if there's anything else they might have an impact on?

[mahoneyandrew]

Thanks for the info. Since discovering them, ive been looking in my other terrariums and set ups. Ive found them living with my springtails culture and a couple in my "native" terrarium which is a 1.5 half moon with some plants and solids I got from outside. This tank is very isolated from my other setups and has mite spray soaked papertowels underneath so I doubt that was the origin. Ive heard of them coming in with coco fiber before. I planned on starting a frog which is another concern because the spingtails are going to be the main food source. But im mostly concerned about my little ball pythons on this thread.