My hermit found mites in the shell.

Question
1. Please help me! Yesterday I found white colour mites crawling out from my hermie's shell about 6-10 of them. I guess they are booklice? THey crawl quite fast and they are in white colour. So I bath my hermie in declorinated water, succesfully float out most mites, then I bath him in ocean salt water again at night since I found another 2 mites after few hours. Until today I dont see any yet. As I have changed all new substrate and cleaned tank with vinegar. Now I am worry about one thing is that, would there be baby mites still hiding in his shell which naked eyes wont see? My 2nd hermie just got molted in the main tank and started walking today. I cant wait to put the infested and cleaned hermie back to the main tank. But I am too worried if he's not clean enough to go back main tank.

2. I will increase the level of coconut fibre and will moisture it as I found the biggest hermie is going to molt soon. Will the amount of moistured c.fibre bring back the spreading of mites if I use salt water to loose the coconut fibre?

Thank you so much.

Jessie

Answer
Dear Jessie,
thank you for your question.
Booklice usually don't crawl into a crab's shell. It sounds like they were real mites, but not necessarily the harmful type. You did the right thing wiht bathing the crab and cleaning everything. I dont think that the mites have laid their eggs in the crab's shell, they usually prefer wood or cork to hide the eggs in the cracks, the shell is probably too moist for the eggs. So I#d say that you can put the crab back into the tank.

Moistening the coconut fibre with salt water prevents mold and may keep away mites/insects. But usually the coconut fibre only attracts harmless mites and insects like booklice, springtails ect. that won't harm the crabs (if any bugs turn up at all), so you don't have to worry about that.
I hope I was of some help to you
Jennifer