bad mite good mite?

ok, so first i found this beige coloured "bug" for lack of a better word, on the moult of my h. lividum:

it was about 1 mm or slightly less in length.
is this the "bad mite" that i should be worried about?
exhibit b:

somewhat longer than 1 mm, fast moving (the one in the picture was squashed dead, that was the only way i could get a picture), and negatively phototactic. there are a number of these on my n. americanus (millipedes).
i am under the impression that these brown ones are "predatory" and will eat bad mites...
so i just need to know if the first one is indeed a bad mite, and if the second one is indeed a good mite, and if there's any good reason i should put some of the good mites into the housing of my h. lividum!

thanks!
- munis

As a general rule in my T tanks...... any mite is a bad mite. I don't know enough about them, and I don't want to learn, so I just make sure they don't exist in my T tanks.

I really have no experience in this arena, but I do know that there are such thing as predatory mites. These will eat all the other mites, and then finally each other. So there are "good mites" but I can't tell you what they look like. But, I can't see how there would be a predatory mite in an enclosure without there first being a regular mite problem (as they would need some motivation for showing up).

Maybe the darker mite is an adult? I would play it safe and change everything out myself. It's really not worth the risk

The mites on the pedes and the pede itself have a symbiotic relationship though I'm not sure how it would affect the T.

I cant say for sure, but there seems to be a rule that the larger and faster a mite is, the less harmful it is, and the ones that are dangerous are the very small white, almost stationary mites. Is the lividum on its tippy does a lot? Does it have the mites all over it?

errrr... no, the h. lividum, as is customary, spends the majority of its time in its burrow! also, its a fairly little fellow a 0.75" or so, and when i got it two weeks ago, i didn't notice any mites on it at all, so this was a bit of a surprise..

thanks!
- munis

Snipes said:

I cant say for sure, but there seems to be a rule that the larger and faster a mite is, the less harmful it is, and the ones that are dangerous are the very small white, almost stationary mites. Is the lividum on its tippy does a lot? Does it have the mites all over it?

Click to expand...

Your chances are very good that that is a predatory mite. And you can get a really nice infestation of them in your brand new store bought bag of peat moss, particularly if the peat moss is stored out of doors, in the wet and the rain as it is here in Oregon at the local Jerry's. I opened a brand new bag not long ago, had just enough time to fill one enclosure, and I hadn't even put the decorations in when I noticed a bunch of speedy tan dots racing all over everything, including me. So, the whole thing got dumped out back by the roses bushs and I had to buy another bag.

I assumed they were doing well in the peat moss because it was wet, humid and relatively warm in the bag, and I doubt the peat was sterilized, so there must have been something in there for them to eat? I'd never had that happen before, so it's only guess work on my part.

here's an article i found once while researching mites once, might be an interesting read if nothing else. its about predetory mites. some people buy them to get rid of snake mites.

http://coloherp.org/cb-news/Vol-28/cbn-0101/SnakeMites.html

here is a thread about mites from another forum im a member of that i found the above link at. some of these remedies wouldnt work for T's, or any kind of bug for that matter, but may still be worth the read if your interested.

http://www.moreliapythons.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10032&highlight=mites+mite+ivomec

i recently bought predatory mites as i was worried about some mites i saw in the terrariums. i went for hypoaspis miles and it worked out fine. so if you have predatora mites, i wouldn't worry. now you'll just need an expert to tell which kind yours are...