Mites?! Help!

[Trohr]

Hey guys, I fear that I might have mights. Please watch the video~

YouTube - Mites in my terrarium?!

[John]

They could be mites but they move far too fast for any of the nasty species I'm aware of. Do you have plants in there? The could be from those. I love the quality of your video by the way. What camera are you using?

[Trohr]

I have lots of plants in my terrarium- many of them have small spider webs in them so I have a feeling these are just a hatch of spiders. I gave both my frogs a going over, and none of them had any bugs of any sort sucking the life force from them.

I figured that if they get really bad i'll try the "dry ice" fix....

I recently bought a Cannon Powershot SD780 IS with a true 12.1mp sensor, 3X zoom, and HD video. It's about the size of a credit card.... Best purchase i've made all year.

[Trohr]

It's been awhile now since I noticed the tiny, red, spider-like bugs running around my vivarium. I was wondering, if these things are mites, shouldn't they be going after my frogs? I bought a magnifying glass, looked over my frogs a few times, and didn't notice any of the small bugs on them. I even checked under their arms. A couple days ago I tried the dry ice fix, and it sort of worked, but the bugs came back a few days afterward. I plan on trying it again in a few days, but I'm going to leave the dry ice in there all day long, and slowly leak a bottle of CO2 in as well. Maybe these are some other type of bug? I desperately want them to be some other type of bug, but they do look similar to these spider mites....



And some of my plants do have little holes in them like these....

[Trohr]

*EDIT!

Just sent a few photos, and video off to the big-bug-guy on my local university's campus. He says the odds are high that they are mites- most likely came in with the soil- but apparently not all mites are parasitic. I have yet to see any of them on my frogs, and he thinks this is because they're going after my plants~

[Kurt]

That is the most likely scenario.

[Kurt]

A while back I had mites in one of my scorpion enclosures. They were very similar to yours. I just cleaned out the cage and used a moistened Q-tip to pick off any that were on the scorpion itself. Haven't seen them since.