Ahhh Mites!!!

We went outside to feed our dragons their morning salad about 5 days ago and found mites on 4 of our 7 dragons. We immediately researched how to rid them of these horrid pests. We separated each of them in their own glass aquarium with nothing but paper towels. We went to the store and bought Zoo-Med Mite-Off in hopes that it would effectively kill these microscopic beasts.

We take each and every dragon separately and soak them in warm water for at least half an hour to try and drown the mites. This works quite well. After their soak, we take a needle and try and remove what mites we can see. After this, they get a soak in medium tea colored Betadine to help prevent infection and clean the bites. They then dry and are sprayed with the Mite-Off. We hold the dragon tail up so that the spray goes under the scales. We take a Q-Tip and thoroughly wipe the head area and the neck flaps. We let the dragon dry and place it back into it's newly cleaned aquarium. We wait one day and repeat the procedure as per the direction on the Mite-Off bottle.

And as for their outside wooden cage? We took everything out; baked the wood and boiled everything else. We removed their sand and threw it out. Then we vacuumed the remaining sand up and around the cracks because that is where the eggs would be, right? How would we go about treating a 5.5 foot long x 6 foot tall cage?? Someone suggested putting a cat flea collar inside and sealing it up as much as possible for a couple of days, then let it air out. Is this effective??? Here is a picture of our cage. The bottom two rows are four cages (2 per row) and the top row is one large cage.

Since the first day, the mite population has dropped dramatically, but some are still there. How can we permanently get rid of these things??? Has anyone successfully overcome mites?? Please Help!!

It seems to work better than the Zoo Med version. You will have to treat the entire rack as well and let sit for a couple of days. Good luck. They are a pain to get rid of.