New Emperor owner Very Worried About Mites on scorps!!

Hello

about 2 months ago i purchased 3 emperor scorpions and have since fell inlove with them. Everything i know I have learnt from this forum, so for that I say 1000000 thank you's!! about a week ago i noticed small white things on the underside of my scorions. whatever it is it seems localised to cirtain areas and are growing in size/numbers. I fear my scorpions are under siege!! I clean out leftovers whenever they are done, and the 2 times I have found a piece with little mites crawling on it, I have replaced the portion of substrate around that.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f55/18/67/28/56/20131210.jpg
https://i.servimg.com/u/f55/18/67/28/56/20131211.jpg

Here is a picture of my male and one of my female. I hope this is enough that someone can help me identify and solve this ASAP.

Thanks!!...again

It does sound like mites but when i clicked the link, it seems like you have a case of mycosis. A dreaded fungal infection. There's a thread here that tackles that. Basically what you do is keep your scorps dry so the fungi can dry out but the tricky part is that emps like it moist

those are certainly mites and a bad case of them. Im sure someone else with more experience dealing with parasitic mites om Emps will chime in

Tongue Flicker wrote:

It does sound like mites but when i clicked the link, it seems like you have a case of mycosis. A dreaded fungal infection. There's a thread here that tackles that. Basically what you do is keep your scorps dry so the fungi can dry out but the tricky part is that emps like it moist

Please explain why you say mycosis???

That is NOT mycosis, I am sorry I dont want to be mean, but please refrain from diagnosing a very serious affliction when you are not sure. You can create serious misunderstandings and possibly the wrong advice may harm the scorpion. Please check your facts properly.

Because that is just a normal Emperor underside but with a bad case of mites.


Mycosis in forest scorpions is extremely rare, because the scorpion itself tolerates very high humidity.
Desert species do not tolerate high humidity and are very susceptible to mycosis.

THIS is a serious case of mycosis, I know because this scorpion was mine.
The fungal infection creates necrotic tissue which eventually dies of.




MITES:


First, seperate scorpion and totally clean out enclosure and boil/freeze all decorations to exterminate mites.


This is what I would do, some things I read some things I would do out of my own experience:
You may try the following:
- Pick the scorpion up by the tail if you are not experienced use padded tongs.
- Use a moist paint brush and gently brush of all the mites.
- Place scorpion in little plastic container, on a paper towel, keep one side dry, and one side slightly moist, the mites will be attracted to the moist side when the scorp becomes drier. And the Emp must be able to drink.
- Make sure you have a little water dish or something for the scorpion, so air humidity is kept a bit higher then bone dry, and repeat procedure with brush.


I hope this helps a bit.


Goodluck and let us know!!


Cheers!


Joey

It has been a very long battle, but after having clean scorpions for 4 months, I can say i have cured them!!

I tried the paint brush method and they were just 2 clingy, non were removed and when i put them in the 50/50 container...the scorpions just stayed on the damp side which was pointless, so after a lot of research i proceeded to do this:

I submerged them in water, as they become completely passive after 4 mins under water and the stress of cleaning them is not healthy for them (welding gloves worked well for handling them during this), after which I gently cleaning off the mites with a cotton bud. had to repeat this process 3 times as they wake up after a minute or so and make things very difficult. i then applied a little petroleum Jelly over the remainder i could not remove to suffocate them, and finished by keeping them in a dry container with only paper towel and a water dish. within a week they were all clean.

I returned them to their enclosures and to my dismay in a week they started to become infested again. no matter how many times i exchanged substrate, sterilized tanks and hides, scrubbed water bowls and cleaned the tanks 4 times a day, nothing helped.

I noticed this only affected my tropical species. So i decided to lower the humidity to 52-60%, I live in South Africa and this is my climates average. My Pandinus imperators now live at that climate, it is the only way i manage to keep them free from the dreaded mite plague! I keep only a small area around their burrows damp to maintain structural integrity as dry coco peat does not hold.

Thanks to everyone that gave input, I hope that anyone else that has this problem gets to read this post and that it helps them.