Uh Oh! Why Me?

[Hock3ymonk3y]

Hey,
1) I think my tank might have mites When I took out my waterbowl today to change it I saw something that looked like dust. So I inspected it and saw little black dots with a kind of "spider-web" type thing all over. Immediately I thought mites and threw away the aspen in that area and replaced it with new aspen. (I forgot to take pictures) Can anyone please help confirm if these are mites and what I should do? Thanks

2) Also, when I was changing the waterbowl I saw weird whitish stuff in the crevices. I think this might be from the minerals that are left over from when the water dries, but can anyone tell for sure? (I remembered to take pics this time)


(The stuff inside of the blue circle is what i'm concerned about, the shiny stuff is just water)

BTW, with the mite issue, I did not find any on Luther and has not been in his waterdish

Thanks,

[Kaorte]

Yeah, just mineral deposits on the water bowl.

If you think you have mites, clean out your entire enclosure and cage furniture with a bleach solution and use white paper towel as substrate instead of aspen. This way you can see if there are any mites on the substrate.

Then order some provent-a-mite.

[Hock3ymonk3y]

I will be doing what you said just in case but can you tell for sure if they are mites?

[Kaorte]

If you look at them very closely they should have little legs. Sometimes if you smash them blood comes out.

[Spaniard]

I think your water bowl just needs some cleaning too, but if in doubt treating the enclosure with PAM won't hurt. Its never a bad idea to have a can around either, especially if you think you may add more snakes to your collection.

[Hock3ymonk3y]

Yeah definatly, ill get pam. Luther has not even been showing signs of mites either nor does he have any visable ones in his heat sensors, near his nostrils, near his vent, or anywhere else. If I see anymore I will examine closely for legs and smush them too, hopefully it was just dust or something. Also, I spent a lot of time cleaning the dish with bleach, so I think its pretty clean. Thanks a ton guys