Grey dust / powder on Hissers?!

C

CreepyCrowley

Ootheca
First time Roach keeper here, I have 2 Javan roaches, I’ve had them for a few months now and I’ve noticed some grey dust/powder on them? One has it a lot more than the other, they’re eating fine and there’s no sign of mites or Illness (aside from grey dust ) 

I have a small bowl of ‘Bug grub’ and I’ve seen them sit in that a few times and I thought it could be that but now I’m unsure.

ANY help would be very much appreciated, I don’t wanna lose these guys !

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Unless those are grain mites in their hyposus stage, I'm not sure what that stuff is, almost looks fungal... The commensal mites hissers often come with would probably help with that. 

 
Hisserdude said:
Unless those are grain mites in their hyposus stage, I'm not sure what that stuff is, almost looks fungal... The commensal mites hissers often come with would probably help with that. 
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Aw crap, I hope it’s not fungal! 
 

when I bought these two they didn’t have mites or anything, sounds like a dumb question but is there anyway I can introduce mites or is there anyway I can remove/cure  this stuff ?? 

 
You have any clearer pictures? Kinda hard for me to see, but besides something fungal, the only other option would be grain mites sticking to your hisser in their hyposus stage, but it doesn't look like grain mites to me in those two pictures... 

As for removal, I'm really not sure what to do, have never had this type of fungal infections in my hissers before. If you wanna introduce commensal mites to them, all you'd have to do is buy hissers from someone who's got those mites in their colonies. 

 
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Hisserdude said:
You have any clearer pictures? Kinda hard for me to see, but besides something fungal, the only other option would be grain mites sticking to your hisser in their hyposus stage, but it doesn't look like grain mites to me in those two pictures... 

As for removal, I'm really not sure what to do, have never had this type of fungal infections in my hissers before. If you wanna introduce commensal mites to them, all you'd have to do is buy hissers from someone who's got those mites in their colonies. 
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Hey, sorry during a state of panic I got a q-tip and some water and cleaned it off them, (I was really gentle and made sure not to harm them or cause too much distress ) I didn’t take any close up photos, sorry !  
 

if it comes back I’ll go back to the pet shop I got them from and see if they have any others with mites or anything. 

would springtails help? 

 
No problem, hopefully that helped them out a bit! Though if it's truly a fungal infection, it'd likely come back... And no, springtails wouldn't help much with keeping the roaches clean, just the substrate itself. 

 
Hisserdude said:
No problem, hopefully that helped them out a bit! Though if it's truly a fungal infection, it'd likely come back... And no, springtails wouldn't help much with keeping the roaches clean, just the substrate itself. 
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Thanks for the info and help,I’ll keep an eye on them and if nothing changes I’ll look into getting some beneficial mites for them :)

 
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