Help White Bugs

[Guest]

Please give me info fast. I just got some feeder crickets from the pet store on wednesday. Its the first time I fed crickets to my new baby tegu. I went in the cage thursday afternoon and found a dead cricket covered in tiny white bugs. Did these little critters come from the pet store? I took a hand ful of bedding around the dead cricket out of the cage. Do I have to worry about these bugs harming my gu? Does anyone know how to prevent this from happening? Do I need to throw out all my bedding? :cry:
Please any info is greatly appreciated

 

[Guest]

Well first off, you really shouldn't be feeding your tegu crickets IN it's enclosure; you might want to look into getting a separate feeding bin, like a Rubbermade tub. You run the risk of your little guy accidentally eating some substrate while chasing around and catching the crickets. That, and any crickets that AREN'T eaten right away tend to hide until night fall and as they come out, can stress out your tegu with the constant crawling over them and the chirping.

Secondly, I may not know what exactly the white bugs are, but I would definitely recommend completely changing out the substrate.

 

[JohnMatthew]

Might be springtails.

 

[Guest]

Well first off, you really shouldn't be feeding your tegu crickets IN it's enclosure; you might want to look into getting a separate feeding bin, like a Rubbermade tub. You run the risk of your little guy accidentally eating some substrate while chasing around and catching the crickets. That, and any crickets that AREN'T eaten right away tend to hide until night fall and as they come out, can stress out your tegu with the constant crawling over them and the chirping.

Secondly, I may not know what exactly the white bugs are, but I would definitely recommend completely changing out the substrate.

I killed the crickets before putting them in the cage. I then put them in his food dish, so that he didnt take in any mulch. He must have flung one of the crickets out of the dish while eating. I would like to feed him outside of his cage, but lately he only comes out between 1 and 3 in the morning. I dont want to dig him up to feed him. I think he is going into hybernation, I almost never see him anymore. But he is still eating a little and realy growing fast.

I just spent 30 dollars on mulch for his cage, does anyone have an idea fo substrate that is cheaper and easy to come by?

Thank you all for the information

 

[Riplee]

Tegu is tough. No need pre killed the crickets. All ur need is just throw 1 or 2 dozen in his cage.

 

[Guest]

Ok, so I went to another local pet store that specializes in exotics. I told the owner about my problems with white bugs on my crickets. He said the suplier that supplies most of this area of Michigan with crickets, had a contamination issue with his last shipment. But this guy gets his crickets from another supplier in Ohio, so he didnt have the issue the other pet stores had. So now that I know where they came from, my next task was ridding myself of the bugs. I had to replace $30 worth of bedding and clean the entire tank with a bleach solution. I replaced the repti bark/cypress mulch with a product called COCO HUSK by Exoterra. It was cheaper and it looks like it will hold moisture well and reduce odor. I was not happy about this, that pet store that sold me those crickets is going to hear it from me. :rant
I didnt like that pet store anyway, their reptiles looked sick and poorly cared for.

 

[Guest]

Well, the bugs are back after replacing the bedding and bleaching everything.
I did some reading and I think the white bugs could be wood mites. They are not harmful to the reptile, but I still want them gone. So I read that I could either get mite chemicals or buy a predator mite called "Hypoaspis". The Hypoaspis feeds on many forms of mites and as soon as they eat all the mites, they die off from lack of food. I like this alternative, so I think I will try this.

 

[White_Lotus]

Might be springtails.

The moderator hit the nail on the head. You are dealing with wet wood eaters. They came with your brand new mulch!!! You have a few option but the most "popular" ones are getting an anti-mite agent to take care of them, letting you mulch dry out and waiting a week or 2 to re-wet it after being completely dry(not good for your Gu at all), or replacing the mulch and cooking the replaced mulch at 250 degree F for 15-20 minutes,nothing can live at 250 degrees. OR just letting you tegu cage become a minature eco-system and allowing them to live lol. :cheers

 

[Toby_H]

As others suggested, my first suspicion would be springtails.

If so, they are completely harmless. As a matter of fact, my small amphibian keepers cultivate springtails as food. I get them on the surface of the water in my fish tanks from time to time (especially in fall). I noticed them in my Tegus enclosure just last week.

It is possible but difficult to get rid of them, and as they are harmless, IÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ve never been concerned of them.


Tegus have very thick skin and as they have Ã?¢ââ??¬Ã?Å?beadedÃ?¢ââ??‰â??¢ scales as opposed to shingle like scales, they are resistant to most bugs such as this.


Although identifying them is important.

 

[Guest]

cleaning cage with bleach and baking all mulch at 250 deg F, for 25 min seems to have killed them. I haven't seen one in the last 4 days. Thanks for all your help

 

[KSTAR]

hey whats up guys and gals i haven't been on in a while due to a busy work schedule and going back to school hopefully...i might be late here but i had those little white bugs and when i did my research and they are harmless and it used to come up in my cypress mulch once in a while and ill do is just swap it out the same day and that will be it....and Ive used eco earth coco fiber before that comes in a little brick that breaks up when its put in some hot water for a bit and that works great for some tegus to and i never had them in that bedding when i used it but i used that for my really small little guys cause i was scared about mulch poking them while they burrowed....and everyone has they're own preference but i always fed all my animals in separate enclosures like rubber maids and i gave them they're crickets already dead because i didn't want them getting stressed out trying to catch them... hope i helped

 

[Guest]

For what its worth.. if they ARE springtails, like everyone said, they are harmless. A friend of mine is huge into breeding various amphibians and geckos and he has them all in completely natural vivariums, with wood and live plants and all, and he actually seeds all his tanks with springtails, purposely, to help eat up the poop and scavenge in his setups. They aren't a mite, they won't live on your animal as a parasite or anything, so if you do see them again, you can at least rest assured that even if you may think they look gross in there, they are not harming your pet!