E
eris
Guest
Hi all,
I could really use some help. I have a beloved tiger salamander who resides in a large Sterilite sort of container. The substrate is sterilized potting soil (no perlite, vermiculite, or other additives). There are some polished stones, a shallow water dish that gets changed every couple of days, and a piece of driftwood that I collected at the beach several years ago, baked in the oven for a couple of hours, and kept in a fish tank for a couple of years before it made its way into the sal enclosure at least a year ago. I change out the soil infrequently, as the sal has always had the good manners to defecate in his water dish. He eats well, is alert, and interactive.
Just minutes ago, I fed him, then was giving him one of his twice-daily showers, when I noticed a miniscule bug crawling on his face. I instantly started looking for more, and sure enough, there are a whole bunch of them crawling around in the dirt, mostly in one area. They are TINY, and appear to be white, or off-white. My inclination is to clean out the entire enclosure and replace all the dirt. Can anyone tell me what these are? Would they be mites? The sal is oblivious to their existence, and I'm 99.9% positive that they just 'appeared' (temps just sky rocketed into the 90's here in the last couple of days).
I'm sorry the post is so long, but I wanted to provide as much info as I could.
I could really use some help. I have a beloved tiger salamander who resides in a large Sterilite sort of container. The substrate is sterilized potting soil (no perlite, vermiculite, or other additives). There are some polished stones, a shallow water dish that gets changed every couple of days, and a piece of driftwood that I collected at the beach several years ago, baked in the oven for a couple of hours, and kept in a fish tank for a couple of years before it made its way into the sal enclosure at least a year ago. I change out the soil infrequently, as the sal has always had the good manners to defecate in his water dish. He eats well, is alert, and interactive.
Just minutes ago, I fed him, then was giving him one of his twice-daily showers, when I noticed a miniscule bug crawling on his face. I instantly started looking for more, and sure enough, there are a whole bunch of them crawling around in the dirt, mostly in one area. They are TINY, and appear to be white, or off-white. My inclination is to clean out the entire enclosure and replace all the dirt. Can anyone tell me what these are? Would they be mites? The sal is oblivious to their existence, and I'm 99.9% positive that they just 'appeared' (temps just sky rocketed into the 90's here in the last couple of days).
I'm sorry the post is so long, but I wanted to provide as much info as I could.
