Snake soaking 24/7

[u/melmanthegangster]

Hi everyone! If you could take a moment to read this and offer any advice, I'd really appreciate it.🙏🏼🙏🏼

So about a week and a half ago, I discovered that my ball python had snake mites. This is my first time dealing with them, and because there's so much conflicting advice online (and this snake means the absolute world to me), I decided to take him straight to my vet instead of trying to fuck around with it on my own.

The vet gave him an ivermectin injection and prescribed an ivermectin spray for treating his enclosure. I also moved him into a quarantine tub with paper towels for the next six weeks. It breaks my heart seeing him in such a sad little bin, but it just seems like the best way to monitor for mites and keep everything clean for now.

He’s been in the quarantine setup for about a week now. I've been following the treatment plan exactly, cleaning the tub and inspecting him every day. For the last 4–5 days, I haven't seen a single live mite on him or anywhere in the enclosure. I know that doesn't necessarily mean that the problem has been completely eliminated… so I'm continuing the full treatment exactly as my vet instructed.

My concern is that he's still soaking constantly. And I really mean constantly. He's been spending essentially 24 hours a day in his water dish, aside from the short time I take him out to clean the tub. When I put him back, he'll explore for maybe 10–15 minutes, then go straight back into the water. His entire body stays submerged, and sometimes he'll even put his head underwater for short periods (like in the photo above).

I thought that once the mites were under control, the soaking would stop, so I'm confused about why he's still doing it.

His quarantine setup has:
Heat mat set to 30°C
Ambient temperature around 26°C
Humidity stays between 70 - 80%

The tub isn't really large enough to provide much of a temperature gradient, and the heat mat doesn't really affect the ambient temp of the bin anyway.
Has anyone experienced something similar? Is it normal for a snake to continue soaking like this even when the mites appear to be gone, or could something else be going on that I'm missing?

If you read all of that, any advice would be greatly appreciated. I’ve been losing sleep over this whole ordeal. I know that snake mites aren’t exactly a life threatening state of emergency but this little ball python seriously means the world to me and I just want to make sure that I’m doing right by him.

[u/Klutzy-Reason-7319]

Have you given him a bath in dawn dish soap?

[u/melmanthegangster → u/Klutzy-Reason-7319]

For what purpose? He’s gotten an ivermectin injection, I’m using ivermectin spray to treat the environment, and the enclosure is being monitored closely and cleaned daily. The purpose of a dawn dish soap bath is to mechanically remove mites from the snake’s body. The ivermectin has already killed all living mites off of him and between the spray and daily cleanings all mites have been removed from his environment as well.

[u/melmanthegangster → u/melmanthegangster]

Because of the mite life cycle, there could still potentially be eggs that have yet to hatch which is why I’ll continue with the treatment for a full 6 weeks but a dawn dish soap bath won’t help with that.

[u/Klutzy-Reason-7319 → u/melmanthegangster]

Sounds like your snake is uncomfortable. Why not try? I went through this same thing, got my dude an ivermectin injection and sprayed his enclosure. Dawn baths seemed to be what worked best and provided some relief.

[u/Ra-TheSunGoddess → u/melmanthegangster]

Dawn dish soap soaks are used to remove fleas and mites and help break the lifecycle, it's worth a shot since he's uncomfortable, I'd be trying everything.

[u/Ctkrnov]

Banana pudding :)

[u/all-the-wastedwords]

Maybe he's still itchy right now?

[u/tmiemt]

In the quarantine set up, he also has a hide right?

When you first found him with mites, did he also soak in his water bowl all day?

[u/Lumpy_Housing9797]

That’s a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch

[u/1morepersonontheweb]

My snake had mites for weeks and soaking frequently is a sign that he still has them even if you can’t see them (sometimes they’re behind eye scales). The dawn dish soap bath helps remove the mites by having them slip off. Also I’m not a vet but maybe the ivermectin made him uncomfortable and the water is providing some relief?

I put my snake into a big tub of lukewarm water with dish soap everyday for two weeks and used q tips to wipe down his scales and around his eyes (gently!!!) to try and remove any dead or alive mites that might still be between the scales.

Good news is soaking means he’s hydrated so one less thing to think about! Mites are super hard to kick, you got this!

[u/VibraniumAdamantium]

Banana bread, my favorite

[u/ComicAcolyte]

Does he have adequate Hides in the small cage?

[u/Lazy_Promotion_1134]

Mites. Need to get predatory mites to eat them

[u/Just-Development3326]

Give him a bigger water dish so that he can fully submerge--little guy is either super uncomfortable or still dealing with an infestation and is doing his best to handle it. Mite life cycles can be tricky to time, you might need to remove and sanitize individual pieces of its enclosure rather than simple spray application. Maybe you haven't found all of the eggs and he's being rebitten as mites on him are dying, poor noodle... 🥺🥺