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Serving the Dart Frog Community Since 2004...

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Are Mites in FF cultures really bad ?
#1
I have noticed some little white bugs that are growing in my cultures and wonder if they are a problem. They sometimes get on the outside as well. They fly's do not seem to be affected by them. Anyone experienced this before?
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#2
Hey Mike,
We had some mites infest some springtail cultures about seven-eight months ago. I am not a bug guy , but the mites are not bad for the darts. We stopped feeding out of the infested culture and have not had any re-occurences since. I would throw out the infested cultures.
Good luck.
Rich
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#3
yea, they are just mites, if you actually get a culture of mites going they are great to feed smaller froglet, like thumbnails , but i just use spring tails, they are easier to feed, and they cant spread to other stuff :x
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#4
I have a booming colony of springtails that has a few mites in it. They don't bother the springtails at all. On the other side, I have heard that some mites will eat the fruit fly larvae, which will totally cut down production. It can only be cured by throwing out the culture, and hope that they have'nt made their way into your other cultures.

Ed P
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#5
Well I do believe they have cut way down on my fruit fly production. I had to go find some pin head crickets the other day to feed them. Thanks for all the advice.

Mike
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#6
Well one of my fears regarding feeding my frogs through the winter is setting in. I had a good culture of fruit flies going until the mites dessimated my population. I have been supplementing with pen head crickets while I have been trying to get a new culture going, I am about a week or so into the new cultures so no flies yet. It has been really cold up here for almost two weeks, several days the high has been in the single digits and the pet store has not received any more pen head crickets and have no fruit flies. I have called all over and there are no flies or cricketts to be found. I fed the last few flies I had tonight after not feeding yesterday. So how long can these guys go without eating and any ideas on what I might be able to feed them? The pet store says they might get the cricketts tomorrow but since the high is 6 I doubt they were shipped. I have been hesitant to order any on line the past several weeks because it has been so cold.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Mike
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#7
If you have a petco around, you may be able to get mini mealworms. You may be able to use waxworms if you can get a thing of them that has the smaller ones in it. They are used as fishing bait, so they shouldn't be to hard to find. Catch anything around the house that you feel may be safe, or find an egg sac from a spider and hatch it out to feed. If you are close to understory enterprises, they may be able to help you out. Their link is on dendroboard.com. Find a local that has some flies. Hmm, I can' think of anything else at the moment. I would start breeding crickets as well though. THen you get true pinheads. Good luck, I know how stressful it can be to not have food. My frogs had to go about a week with verylittle food once, but they all survived ok. I think if you cool them down a little bit, and as long as you don't have froglets, you should be ok for a little while. Best of luck,

Ed parker
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#8
Ed,

Thanks for the great advice, I will check into that today, we do have a petco around.

Thanks

Mike
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#9
Try the bug farm. They ship with heat packs and I've ordered several different types of cultures and they all arrived in great condition minus a few maggots from the ff climbing around the box. In the two weeks I've had them, I've had a steady abundance of fly and flour beetles. They have some of the best prices I've found. besides I've stuck mine in the basement just to slow production (too many flies, and not enough frogs). Good cultures.
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#10
I had them too. Believe it or not, the frogs (large cobalt) actually enjoyed eating them! If you end up chucking the old cultures and getting all new ones (that's what I did), I would recommend getting the anti-mite paper to put on your shelves.
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