Minusculus white PARASITES.... HELP!!!

[Desmyth]

Hi everyone, I'm new here, and the main reason I am here is this:

I have a colony of LASIUS NIGER, and I have had it for almost a year, since april 2019. Everything has gone great, with exception of some incidents I, accidentaly, provoked, but despite all that, my colony has grown and I have moved it two times.

Now I have it in a large fishtank, I love watching them foraging on the cactae and succulents I placed for them. Since they are not interested in any fruit or bread, I feed them with mealworms, mainly....and here comes my problem.

Sometimes I can find crickets or cockroaches on my way home, or in my backyard, and I like taking them to my ants. I feel kinda bad about them only eating mealworms, thus I get really excited about giving them real meat. But last time, like five days ago, I gave them a cockroach, and next day the tank glass was full of very little white dots, smaller even than common springtails, which I have also in my tank, cause they come with the dirt. I suspect they came with the last cockroach.

I have very good sight, I ussually can take one ant and see all its parts, joints, eyes, even the mouth. Imagine my surprise when I couldn't see the white dots. That small they are.

The parasites are not attached to my ants, as far as I can see. But my ants are stressed, more active than ussually. During the day, I could see five to ten ants outside, foraging, but since the last cockroach, I cant count them down, they might be something between 30 and 50. Totally unussual, isn´t it?

What can I do? Are these white parasites bad for my ants? Have you experienced anything like this before?

[AusAnts]

Hi everyone, I'm new here, and the main reason I am here is this:

I have a colony of LASIUS NIGER, and I have had it for almost a year, since april 2019. Everything has gone great, with exception of some incidents I, accidentaly, provoked, but despite all that, my colony has grown and I have moved it two times.

Now I have it in a large fishtank, I love watching them foraging on the cactae and succulents I placed for them. Since they are not interested in any fruit or bread, I feed them with mealworms, mainly....and here comes my problem.

Sometimes I can find crickets or cockroaches on my way home, or in my backyard, and I like taking them to my ants. I feel kinda bad about them only eating mealworms, thus I get really excited about giving them real meat. But last time, like five days ago, I gave them a cockroach, and next day the tank glass was full of very little white dots, smaller even than common springtails, which I have also in my tank, cause they come with the dirt. I suspect they came with the last cockroach.

I have very good sight, I ussually can take one ant and see all its parts, joints, eyes, even the mouth. Imagine my surprise when I couldn't see the white dots. That small they are.

The parasites are not attached to my ants, as far as I can see. But my ants are stressed, more active than ussually. During the day, I could see five to ten ants outside, foraging, but since the last cockroach, I cant count them down, they might be something between 30 and 50. Totally unussual, isn´t it?

What can I do? Are these white parasites bad for my ants? Have you experienced anything like this before?

The white parasites might be mites. Most mites do no harm to your colony. More ants might be out because they might need something. Try giving them honey, Or they need more nesting space.