# mites on my bearded dragon



## hawkins75 (Oct 22, 2009)

I noticed tiny black dots in my bearded dragons eyelids and after bathing with a cotton bud discovered they were mites. I have binned all her substrate and cleaned her tank, baked her wood and sprayed the viv with zoo med mite off and also applied it to my dragon. Things were looking good until about 2 weeks later i could see many lodged in her eye lid. Why wont they go away???? Any advice please


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## beardie_2 (Aug 7, 2009)

try using play sand as a substrate, we use this for our beardies and they have never had mites, plus give ur beardie a bath regularly in warm water, keep using the mite off stuff, if that continues not working then take the beardie to the local reptile vet.


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## Diamondback (Aug 29, 2009)

Hi 

I had this problem I think they came in on some substrate brought for one of my snakes. The mites spread through to my Beardies even though they were on a play sand substrate. 

I tried the washing / mite off but they just seemed to come back every couple of weeks or so. 

In the end after consulting the thread on mites on this site (see below) I used the following combination to get rid of them 

http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/snakes/32336-mite-treatments.html


1) Obtain some ARDAP

2) Clear everything out of the viv's and clean them down. 

3) Soaked any branches / hides etc in a water / bleach solution. 

4) Sprayed viv and branches / hides with Ardap

5) used newspaper as substrate sprayed with Ardap and changed every day

6) Removed mites from around eyes and mouth and bathed animal every day. 

7) After a period of about 8 weeks I was sure that the problem had been solved. so returned to normal substrate (sand) 

ARDAP can be ordered on ebay etc. here are some things to remember when using this

1) Dont spray the animals themselves or spray with the animals in close proximity or near water or food bowls etc. 

2) when you spray the Viv / hides etc. make sure it is well ventilated and leave for several hours until odour has gone etc before introducing anything to the viv. Do not spray water / food bowls. Make sure you spary all the viv inside and out, these little buggers can travel long distances to lay eggs etc. Also do all cages even if you think the animal is not infected. 

3) Ardap will protect for up to 6 weeks which is enough to break the mite cycle, but it will also kill crickets etc so dont spray near them, and once the vivs are sprayed etc. Feed crickets to your animals outside of the viv. 

This worked for me and so far I have not had any more infestations. It pays to read the threads on this forum on mites as there are several ways of doing this, but the key is to understand the mites life cycle and break it. 

Hope this helps


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## beardie_2 (Aug 7, 2009)

the only way they could have spread is if you had the snake near the beardies, or if you have not been using an alcohol hand sanitiser, which we use all the time, when our royal had mites we bathed her in an oil and water solution to help kill the mites, then we removed her off the bark and put her in to a clean disinfected viv, then washed our hands and used the alcohol hand sanitiser stuff we have got, and none of our beardies got mites nor have they got them now, it is all about knowing what to do to prevent mites spreading to any other reptiles in the house


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