I’ve been looking into mites to perhaps start keeping. Velvet mites (family Trombidiidae) seem to be the obvious choice, for their size, but all mites are super cool! Any advice out there on how to keep them?
So far the advice I’ve seen consists of:
- need lots of ventilation (also need some kind of system to prevent juveniles from escaping)
- need to provide other small arthropods for food (saw isopods and silverfish recommended on one site)
- substrate should be a biochar-clay mix with a bit of soil on top (recommended by someone on Facebook)
And… that’s it. Most people who keep mites in captivity seem to collect them from outside, and usually keep them for research/educational purposes. I’ve definitely seen velvet mites near my house before. And I’ve seen a couple of 1gal tanks for sale online (though I have no idea how suitable they are for keeping mites, or isopods/silverfish for that matter).
There is not much info about the subject that I can find.