mites in roach bin

[johnnyd5844]

I noticed today there are these tiny white mites crawling around on the lid of my roach bin today. They are tiny like really hard to see and move sort of slow. I sort of researched it and think they are grain mites. Does anyone know how I can get rid of them without hurting the roaches? I want to try to get rid of them before they get out of control.

 

[Gail]

I'm don't know how to get rid of them but if you head over to arachnoboards and post under the insects forum, they might be able to help you.

 

[jon21388]

I would clean everything out of your bin. Make sure all the egg crates or what ever you used for housing is also all cleaned. Change all the food and water source.

 

[OWCham]

You can get predatory mites .

 

[BlueDevil]

You could try cutting the heat and lowering the humidity. Usually that's what I do when I start to see them.

 

[Claudiusx]

You could try cutting the heat and lowering the humidity. Usually that's what I do when I start to see them.

Does this usually get rid of them?

-Brandon

 

[BlueDevil]

You could try cutting the heat and lowering the humidity. Usually that's what I do when I start to see them.

Does this usually get rid of them?

-Brandon

I had a mite infestation back in Sept. and cleaned out my bin, made new roach hotels only to notice the mites come back less than a week later, but not as many when I cleaned the bin out. So I lowered the humidity by removing the water crystals and turned off the heat and ran it that way for about 2-3 weeks. I would leave only enough fruits/vegetables that my roaches could consume in just a matter of hours for their source of hydration. I didn't really notice any major die-offs by doing this. Once I got them under control I stopped using water crystals and only supplied fresh fruits/vegetables and hadn't noticed any mites until recently and which I'm just going to repeat the cycle. The mites seem to really explode when it's too hot and humid. I've had the heat off now for almost 48 hours and the bin is still around 80 degrees. I'll try and take a pic of the mites if I can.

 

[OWCham]

The predatory mites are a real solution / They are available over the webernet the last time I looked. the only problem is that once they are done eating all the mites they die off and have to be replaced if it happens again.

 

[OWCham]

what was described is the mites that live in the food and more than likely these mites are not a danger to the roaches.
In fact, there is at least species of madagascar hissing roaches (and probably some other species as well) that have symbiotic relationship with a mite species that lives on the exoskeleton and only eats the detritus that is found on the larger arthropod's body. Kinda like cleaner shrimp. I have two species of madagascar hissers and one will have the mites and the other won't even if they inhabit the same bin.
What you really do not want to end up with is the mite that is probably a subspecies, if not the same species a varoa mite that is decimating bee colonies all over the country. These things attach themselves to the exoskelon of the insect and suck its juices . I had an infestation of these things on some crickets that came out of florida. They seemed to be most destructive to the smaller nymph crickets and in the worst cases would attach themselves all over the head of the cricket like multiple limpets making it impossible for the nymph to feed. Luckily I have a special microscope that I could use to get a close look. Indeed, they looked just like the pictures of the dreaded varoa mites and seeing what they were doing to the crickets, it was easy to see why they would be so destructive to the bee industry. I could not find refferences to this type of mite infesting domestic crickets prior to my observations. I understand that, through selective breeding, the Bee Industry is producing a strain of bees that have developed the behavior of mutually cleaning one another which allows those colonies to survive whereas those that do not have this behavior do not survive a varoa infestation.

 

[dmglakewood]

I noticed that I had mites the other day and here's what I did to remove them

1. I removed the egg creates that had the most mites. Usually it's the ones that are closest to the food / water.

2. I removed the top of the roach bin for 2 weeks. This decreases humidity which mites need to live.

3. I spaced out my food / water a little more and I only give them enough food / water to last them a few hours. It's more work for me, but it means no mites.

After a week of doing the above I noticed the mites were almost non existent. I kept it going for another week and now I can't find them anywhere. I cut larger circulation holes in the top of their bin and I still only feed them what they can eat in a few hours. I haven't seen any tace of mites since doin this.

I hope this helps.