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There is at least one bad mite you need to look out for, it is a very small white mite about about 1mm in size.
These are extremely dangerous to millipedes and may kill them if immidiate action is not taken!
If you see these mites i suggest you move your milipedes out of the tank into a sterile container with paper toweling, the mites breed in soil so this will cut the life cycle, also the mites may live on your millipede, in fact they do so to remove them try a damp cotton bud or a tooth pick and gently wipe/flick them off.
and clean the whole tank out and replace with new substrate.
What these mites do is bite into the millipedes exoskeleton and drink the fluids, so without treatment you can imagine the consequences!
another way of getting rid of these mites quickly and effectively is you obtain some predatory mites, pop a few into the infected tank and these will actually feed on the bad mite, the results of these mites have been positive everytime, you can purchase predatory mites
Now there are some good mites, these are largish and brown/red in colour, you will see these crawling all over the millipede, they are quite fast and they only live on the millipede.
What these mites do is crawl over the millipede eating any bits of dirt and pests that may be on the millipede.
Although these mites can sometimes do a little too well and you end up with a millipede with 30 or 40 so mites crawling over it and as you can think, this may be pretty irritating so what you can do, is place the millipede into a container an use a cotton bud or tooth pick and just flick a few of the mites off, but not all.
Some millipedes won't have these mites, but don't worry this is not a bad thing either, millipedes do fine without them too!
Swollen segments
Now its not known what happens when this problem occurs and there is no particular reason why this occurs.
It seems that this problem arises when the millipede has a bad fall or gets knocked about, now whether its an internal problem or not is not known but what happens is a segment or a group of segments become swollen and sometimes the millipede looses the use of the legs attached to the segment.
Now millipedes have been known to survive this, but also not!
Its best to leave the millipede alone to heal on its own, theres nothing else you can do.
Missing legs
Apart from male millipedes which are meant to have a pair of legs missing about the 7th segment from the head, on Some millipedes you may notice legs missing in other places, its just something that happens i'm afraid and it doesn't affect the millepede at all, as you can see they have plenty of spares!
Sometimes though a millipede may have many legs missing and problems arise when there is a group of legs missing. Maybe 10 pairs all together missing and this makes it particularly difficult for the millipede to get around, bury and climb, if this problem is towards the back end of the millipede it means it will have to drag its back end around and maybe harm itself.
I had a millipede with half of its legs missing, unfortunately it died not long after, but it doesn't mean they all do, most live a full and happy life!
Theres nothing that can be done for this problem and millipedes can regenerate legs through shedding.
Parasitic worms
Parasitic or not, its never nice to find maggot like worms infesting your millipede tank, and this is more common than you'd think!
Most of these worm like creatures are fly larvae.
There are a few ways to prevent these, when you collect leaves for you tank, when you get them home place them into a bucket, boil the kettle and pour the boiling water over the leaves until submerged, leave for 10-15 minutes and then remove, this will kill of any larvae or eggs that may be in the leaves, you can do the same with any wood you put in the tank.
Fruit flies and others alike are attracted to old fruit and veg, now seeing that millipedes eat old and rotting foods, theres no way you can just keep replacing with new! one thing you can do is buy some fine netting and actually fix this to the lid of your tank or over any ventilated areas, this will prevent these tiny flies from getting into the tank and laying their eggs on the food.
Wipe down the sides of the tank every night as these worms tend to live on the sides, this will wiped away any stray worms.
Its not known whether these worms will harm a millipede although i have had millipedes die in an infected tanks. Its always best not to take the risk though.
Foot rot/Black stumps
This seems to be the same problem but maybe with different causes, it is known as foot rot, when the millipede appears to have part of the leg missing and left with a black stump, it is believed to be a fungal disease, and can be helped by placing the millipede into a sterile container with dry soil as fungus grows in damp conditions.
Another cause of these blacks stumps is believed to be little native centipedes living in the millipedes tank, a small very long, orange coloured insect with many legs like the millipede, these creatures are carnivorous and it is thought that they will nibble on the millipedes legs while its sleeping, to get rid of these you simply clean the tank out.
These are theories, it's not actually known, but treating for both these is simple enough.
Fungus
Its very rare but sometimes millipedes appear to have hairs begin to grow on their exoskeleton, this is fungus and usually means you humidity is too high, do not try and clean away the fungus as you will only damage to millipede further it seems that is you increase temperature and decrease humidity it helps, but having never had this happen i couldn't say for sure.
Injury
Theres not an awful lot to say on this matter, millipedes do have a tough exoskeleton but they can still be injured.
Theres not a lot you can do, except leave the millipede in a sterile environment and leave it alone.
I had a millipede arrive with a hole in her exoskeleton, but she recovered really well and the hole is sealing up slowly, i guess young millipedes would heal easier as they keep shedding their skin as they grow therefore regenerating the exoskeleton.
