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bug problem eek!

L

LindzS02

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i've been home sick for the past few days but my leos have been given water and fed while i was gone. when i came back last night i looked in their tank and noticed tiny bugs about the size of gnats in there. i use paper towels as a substrate so i could spot them pretty easily. i took everything out of the tank and wiped it down with a damp paper towel and i checked to make sure i got all the bugs. i put fresh paper towel down and thought everything would be ok but i just looked in there today and the bugs are back! i don't know if they're coming from or attracted by the damp coconut fiber in the humid hide? is that something that i have to change frequently? is it using paper towel as a substrate since it absorbs pee differently than sand or bark would? the leos are still getting out the shock of being shipped and are not ready for handling so i can't keep going in there every day to change the paper towels. my next step would be to change the coco fiber in the humid hide, but i was wondering if anyone would be able to help me out over here. should i try using a different substrate? i was just nervous about sand because i kept hearing stories about them ingesting too much and dying. please help!
 
they look black. dark enough to see against white paper towel. they walk but then when you try to smush them, they jump.
 
try this

you can spray proventamite on the sides of the enclosure. that usually kills whats in there and keeps out any perspective squatters!!!
 
where can i get proventamite from? do you spray it on the inside of the enclosure or the outside? is it safe for the leos? i'll also try freezing the coconut fiber. thanks for helping.
 
They sound like springtails. They're probably coming from the moist hide if you use moss, bed-a-beast, etc. They're harmless. If you're really worried about them, I'd change out the moist hide substrate. Most of the mite sprays and such are toxic to geckos and would probably pose a much greater risk to their health than the springtails.

-Alice
 
I remember looking into getting Provent-a-mite a few years back to treat a mite infestation in some alligator lizards. I distinctly recall the label saying it was not safe for use with geckos. Pretty much all the commercial products I looked at were not safe for geckos or small lizards. I'd clean the hides and see if that solves the problem before looking to chemicals. Maybe you could even replace the hide substrate with paper towels or vermiculite (if you don't have a vermiculite eating gecko) at least temporarily since they wouldn't have organic matter for the springtails to feed on.

-Alice
 
call me crazy, but they kind of look like tiny little crickets....
would that be what the spring-things look like?
 
I would say the feeder crickets laid eggs in your coconut fiber and they have since hatched. They're probably pin heads.
 
How big are your leos and what size feeders do you use? If they look like small crickets it does sound like they laid in the coco fiber and the pins hatched out.
 
leos are probably 6 inches or so. i feed them adult crickets. i have seen crickets in the humid hide so i wouldn't be surprised either. so i guess it's safe to just change the coco fiber and let everything else be?
 
Id do the freezing the coco fiber if there are any crickets eggs left that will kill them that way you don't haev to throw it out and buy more.

I dump my moist hides once a week and boil the coco fiber to kill wahtever may get it in by whatever means for whatever reason lol Then I re use it.
 
I agree with the rest, it does sound like you've got baby crickets.

-Alice
 
wendy, when you say that you dump the moist hide, do you mean that you throw away the container and then boil the coco fiber or just dump out the stuff that's in there to boil it and clean out the container? thanks everyone for their help!
 
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