Nasty grain mites in dubia bin

[randommonks]

Yesterday when I went to put in some broccoli stems for the breeder roaches, I noticed what I thought was dust on the top of the bin and under the lid. Upon closer inspection, they were tiny white moving mites which I identified as grain mites. Infestation, overnight. Not sure if they hitchiked on the cat food or the stale hot dog buns, but I spent 3 hours last night cleaning out my bins and transferring as many of the adults and nymphs as I could without getting frass mixed in.

I plan on feeding non-grain foods to starve the mites for about a month as well as keeping the lid off of the bin to keep humidity down. I was wondering what a good source of protein would be if I can't give them cat food or breads. I already feed carrots and the trash parts of veggies. Will that be enough to keep the roaches well fed for that time, or should I still feed a small amount of cat food. I had water crystals in there, but the mites seemed to love that. Will the moisture from the veggies be enough to sustain the colony?

At this point, I'm more concerned about getting the mites gone than the breeding of the colony. I have them in a very tiny container at this time with some egg crates, and that container floating in their original bin with an inch of soapy water to catch any mites that try to climb out of their temp container. No lid, roaches have not eaten since last night. I plan to get some vaseline to put around the edges of the bin to prevent any mite escapees from getting into my closet. Is it even worth keeping the colony (I have over 100 adult females and close to that number in males, along with a few hundred small nymphs) or should I just seal up their container and start over? :?

 

[Carnivorouszoo]

Ifyou have your dubia out of the original bin simply drown the mites in bleach water scrub really good, clean out the closet and use a mite spray for pets, air out the closet, vaccum again and resetup the bin. I had mites with some gerbils once this is what I did and they were gone after that.

 

[randommonks]

Yeah I've vacuumed out my closet and showered out my bin. Keeping the dubias in the temp bin for now. Hopefully the mites will just starve to death, since there's no food in my closet and I'm giving the roaches only baby carrots right now.

 

[Carnivorouszoo]

Thing is you will need to do the total clean down several times for about a month to get rid of them. With the gerbils and those mites I had to swap between two cages everyday once a day for 4 weeks doing the cleanup I discribed. Mites are VERY hard to get rid of. Good luck!

 

[randommonks]

Bleh thanks. I was planning on 2 weeks, but just to be safe I'll bump it up to a month. The roaches don't seem to mind being in the smaller bin at the moment, just a little hungier.