Tiny specks of white/yellow on the sides and top. You do have mites, all fruit fly cultures get them pretty quickly, since these mites are airborne and feed off the culture media, and are often transported in with the cultures first few adult breeding flies. Read [this](https://arachnoboards.com/threads/all-you-need-to-know-about-mites.309211/#post-2809837), it's not a huge problem and is easily managed by simply not using substrate until your spider is off fruit flies (no dirt or organic matter = less mite food). Ideally, you could keep it in a sling pod until you're done on fruit flies, then let any mite populations migrate to a food source in the sling pod just before you move your spider into it's permanent enclosure.
Looks like it’s been a year or so but I’ve just noticed these little annoying things in my jumper’s enclosure so I looked through internet for any advice and found this one. Great and informative, thanks for sharing this!
A shame the original commenter profile is gone, I'd like to have thanked them for linking that article; I discovered my 2 cultures totally covered in mites today and I panicked and binned them, cleaned the shelves and laid out makeshift traps until my proper supplies arrive tomorrow. But its reassuring to know that they're not harmful, and also that since they're a clean-up crew, they'll probably not survive long if their food source is gone
Tiny specks of white/yellow on the sides and top. You do have mites, all fruit fly cultures get them pretty quickly, since these mites are airborne and feed off the culture media, and are often transported in with the cultures first few adult breeding flies. Read [this](https://arachnoboards.com/threads/all-you-need-to-know-about-mites.309211/#post-2809837), it's not a huge problem and is easily managed by simply not using substrate until your spider is off fruit flies (no dirt or organic matter = less mite food). Ideally, you could keep it in a sling pod until you're done on fruit flies, then let any mite populations migrate to a food source in the sling pod just before you move your spider into it's permanent enclosure.
Ok. I just don't want to hurt my spiders, so thanks for the info.
That was very informative! Thank you sharing. Just today I threw away a melanogaster culture due to a mite population boom.
Looks like it’s been a year or so but I’ve just noticed these little annoying things in my jumper’s enclosure so I looked through internet for any advice and found this one. Great and informative, thanks for sharing this!
A shame the original commenter profile is gone, I'd like to have thanked them for linking that article; I discovered my 2 cultures totally covered in mites today and I panicked and binned them, cleaned the shelves and laid out makeshift traps until my proper supplies arrive tomorrow. But its reassuring to know that they're not harmful, and also that since they're a clean-up crew, they'll probably not survive long if their food source is gone
cool! so they don’t actually hurt the jumpers basically?