mites...

[Daigga]

Well I totally needed something to round out my hell is week at work, so of course when I went to clean out Kirby's tank I fin a good bit of little white mites crawling on him. I have him set aside now as I rush to the nearest pet stores in search of mite treatments, but after a quick inspection I didn't have to bother, since it looks like my smaller snakes have them as well. I couldn't find any on my adults, but I know that doesn't mean anything.

How long should I expect this to last with rigorous attention? I thought mites were supposed to be black? Are there any particular treatments that work better? How often do I need to vacuum my reptile room and do I need to worry about the rodents, since they're all in one room?

[lunasjy]

Those white colored mites you see on your ball python and crawling around in the tank are wood mites. Unlike reptile mites (black/brown/red mites), your ball python is completely safe from them because they feed on decomposing wood, not reptiles.
Wood mite magnified



You’ll oftentimes bring wood mites home with you when you buy wood based substrate for your ball python (aspen, bark, etc). You can find them moving slowly over the wood in the cage, near the water bowl and on your ball pythons fecal matter as well. Although they pose no harm to your ball python, they should be placed under control or eradicated because they can expand their colonies very quickly. I’m sure you’d rather not see little white bugs crawling all over your ball python, regardless of whether they’re harmless or not.

http://www.rcreptiles.com/blog/index..._white_bugs_be

I got this info off a website posted ^^^ take a look at it. It has some interesting facts about what mites are, what they look like and how to take care of them.

[Daigga]

Well that's good to know, I guess. The not so good part is that all my racks are made of wood. I suppose as far as the bedding goes I can just trash the aspen I have, since there is only about half a bag each of the coarse and fine shredded stuff I have, but what do I do if the mites are actually in the racks?