How do u get rid of them tho
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Type snake mites into the search bar and you will find many many threads that detail several different ways to get rid of them
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I’m fascinated enough by this tidbit to ask a question in a years-old thread. Are snake mites really such obligate parasites that depriving them of the snake will starve out a population?
Purely theoretically, would removing a snake from a mite-infested bioactive enclosure and letting it cycle for – let’s be generous – three months possibly starve out the mite infestation? (Treating the snake in the meantime obviously.) Do the eggs all hatch in a set amount of time or can you have ones that go dormant and would hatch when a food source returned? Are there any other food sources that could sustain them (even badly) in the meantime?
This has been one of my minor but persistent anxieties setting up a bioactive. I understand scorched-earth is always safest when dealing with mites, but man, I hate the idea of completely gutting something that took so many months to build and get established. If my girl got snake mites in her bioactive, I’d do it, but I’d be bummed about it.
Also, how did this end up for you? It’s so cool the springtails/possible predatory mites seemed to make such a difference.
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Good questions. I totally sympathize with a bit of paranoia around these nasty creatures.
If you remove all of the reptiles, yes. The snake mite, Ophionyssus natricis, is considered an obligate reptile parasite. It wouldn’t matter if you left all the other living things in the enclosure. They can’t feed on plants or other invertebrates.
Yes.
There’s some variance, depending upon environmental conditions, but they don’t go dormant until a snake appears, like desert seeds awaiting rain.
Nope, see above. They can and will hop a ride on a human from the infested enclosure to a new one, which is a good place for paranoia to be proactive.
Basically, scorched earth really is the best policy for dealing with mites. They’re persistent, pervasive, problematic. But they’re neither omnipotent nor immortal.
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People do tend to talk about them like they’re basically the Flood from the Halo games, hah!
Okay, this is all really cool to know. Thank you. We’ve been really cautious about things like quarantine and hygiene after going to shows or bringing in a new animal, so hopefully this’ll never be a problem for us, but one does tend to ruminate.
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Always good to be CAREFUL. You’re welcome! I have a healthy dose of biohazard paranoia myself. 
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Being careful is always a good idea. My situation was different so had nowhere to move the snakes to. It took a good amount of time, but the springtails and pred mites did kill the infestation even with the food source remaining. That said, having done it, if you cant remove the food source i would recommend scorched earth. I would have saved a ton of time and headache just starting over, or at a minimum, clearing all the substrate into bins to preserve the bio, amd storing it seperate the reptile for a few months until safe to rebuild.
With bioactive if you can remove the snakes, remember that starving out isnt the only thing happening. The springtails are predating the eggs and the pred mites are hunting the snake mites. Not only do they have no food, but are being actively hunted. With no food to use to lay new broods, even if they could go dormant, the hunting insects should wipe them imo.
But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of treatment. Your analogy with the flood is correct. They arent impossible to get rid of, but it takes a heroic effort to do so, and if you can prevent getting them in the first place, you will thank yourself and your reptiles will thank you 
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thank you all so much for this thread. i recently got a rosy boa with mites, when I’ve never had snake mites in over 10 years of keeping them as pets (I’m not a breeder or collecter). I’ve been all over the place looking for info and I’ve found some stuff but this thread was worth all its pixels in bitcoin (lol). i have been doing scorched earth but found another mite nymph in the water bowl after disinfecting the whole tank and treating the boa. the advice to take away the water bowl is new but appreciated. the nymph was alive when i pulled it out of the water and immediately began running about on the paper towel. to make matters worse even as a teeny nymph it was comically difficult to smush.
I’ll remove the water bowl and disinfect the tank again today while treating my sweet girl.
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The reason you need to take the water bowl out when disinfecting is because the miticide is water-soluble and highly toxic to the snake if ingested
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