Ellentomologist
Hatchling Member
Hi all.
I am tremendously upset at the moment as I have a parasite outbreak in about half of my roach colonies. I don't have time to make too long of a post at the moment, but long story short I was selling some old planted terrariums and clean-up crews for cash and the guy asked if I would have interest in some dubia roaches as well... Essentially save him some $$$ and get me one of the things I was going to buy anyway - more adult roaches for my expanding colonies.
You see where this is going, right?
I got the new roaches almost exactly a month ago. Put them in their own colony, decent assortment of maybe 20-30 females and 10-20 males. They're not all adults, but those that aren't are in their last instar before shedding and I'm just as glad to have fresh, young roaches to breed. I leave them be. Two weeks later, and it's sorting day. We've had a little bit of reproduction from that colony but significantly less than from my other colonies. Whatever, I don't know how the dude kept his roaches, maybe they'll produce more after a few months in my style of setup with high-quality food. There are also a some dead roaches in that colony, too, maybe more than would be normal, but I don't pay too much attention - there are always a few dead roaches.I clean out the dead roaches and old food, do my typical check-for-weirdness and put in fresh food. Everything /seems/ fine at that time.
Fast forward to today. There is a smell coming from my bug closet. Yes, a very, very bad smell. Normally, there is no smell, or if there is I would classify it, at worse, as "distinct", not as the "oh-god-what-is-that" brand of rancid.
You might be expecting it to be /that/ colony of roaches, but you'd actually be wrong. Oh no, the smell is coming from my hissing cockroaches... Most of which are dead with these disgusting little maggot-type things crawling out of them and a cloud of ??? flying in the container. Truly disgusting. Went from having a thriving colony of hundreds of hissing cockroaches to having - are you ready for this - 6. And who knows if those six will live.
Of course I kinda freak out. I go through all of my roach colonies - and yep, almost all of those new roaches are lethargic or dead and covered maggots. Furthermore, if looks like every single one of my adult colonies also has maggots in it, though most of them only have a few. Like at first I thought they were fine, and I wouldn't have noticed except I was being very thorough and found some in the bottom of the colony, squirming through the frass along with my buffalo beetles.
It's important to note that the new roach colony was directly on top of my hissers, which is probably why they were struck the worst. Additionally, all my other roaches except the new colony have been with me for months or years with no issue. The only creature I've added recently is my SO, and I don't think he has roach parasites. I guess it's possible the outbreak started in my hissers, but I've never had anything like this happen with them before and I've had the colony for longer than I've had Guacemole.
The good news is this: I kept my baby dubias in a different closet, and they look fine, so I do have a few hundred roaches that, as far as I know, have had no exposure. I also don't know of these pests - which are either flies or wasps - are actually what's killing my roaches or if they're just consuming the dead. Either way, I hate them and have a big problem on my hands.
Regardless... Loosing so many adults sucks. I don't know what to do, if I should try to save the colonies I have now. Normally my entomological fascination with figuring out exactly what the white maggots are would make this blow a little softer, but work is so busy and brain-intensive I haven't had a lot of spare brain-juice to expend on this sort of thing (one of the reasons I haven't been as active on here, tbh - for once I am in a job that gives me my fill of "figuring weird biology stuff out").
Egh. Is anyone has experience with roach-maggots, please let me know what you did about them. Any advice is helpful.
Thanks,
-Ellen
I am tremendously upset at the moment as I have a parasite outbreak in about half of my roach colonies. I don't have time to make too long of a post at the moment, but long story short I was selling some old planted terrariums and clean-up crews for cash and the guy asked if I would have interest in some dubia roaches as well... Essentially save him some $$$ and get me one of the things I was going to buy anyway - more adult roaches for my expanding colonies.
You see where this is going, right?
I got the new roaches almost exactly a month ago. Put them in their own colony, decent assortment of maybe 20-30 females and 10-20 males. They're not all adults, but those that aren't are in their last instar before shedding and I'm just as glad to have fresh, young roaches to breed. I leave them be. Two weeks later, and it's sorting day. We've had a little bit of reproduction from that colony but significantly less than from my other colonies. Whatever, I don't know how the dude kept his roaches, maybe they'll produce more after a few months in my style of setup with high-quality food. There are also a some dead roaches in that colony, too, maybe more than would be normal, but I don't pay too much attention - there are always a few dead roaches.I clean out the dead roaches and old food, do my typical check-for-weirdness and put in fresh food. Everything /seems/ fine at that time.
Fast forward to today. There is a smell coming from my bug closet. Yes, a very, very bad smell. Normally, there is no smell, or if there is I would classify it, at worse, as "distinct", not as the "oh-god-what-is-that" brand of rancid.
You might be expecting it to be /that/ colony of roaches, but you'd actually be wrong. Oh no, the smell is coming from my hissing cockroaches... Most of which are dead with these disgusting little maggot-type things crawling out of them and a cloud of ??? flying in the container. Truly disgusting. Went from having a thriving colony of hundreds of hissing cockroaches to having - are you ready for this - 6. And who knows if those six will live.
Of course I kinda freak out. I go through all of my roach colonies - and yep, almost all of those new roaches are lethargic or dead and covered maggots. Furthermore, if looks like every single one of my adult colonies also has maggots in it, though most of them only have a few. Like at first I thought they were fine, and I wouldn't have noticed except I was being very thorough and found some in the bottom of the colony, squirming through the frass along with my buffalo beetles.
It's important to note that the new roach colony was directly on top of my hissers, which is probably why they were struck the worst. Additionally, all my other roaches except the new colony have been with me for months or years with no issue. The only creature I've added recently is my SO, and I don't think he has roach parasites. I guess it's possible the outbreak started in my hissers, but I've never had anything like this happen with them before and I've had the colony for longer than I've had Guacemole.
The good news is this: I kept my baby dubias in a different closet, and they look fine, so I do have a few hundred roaches that, as far as I know, have had no exposure. I also don't know of these pests - which are either flies or wasps - are actually what's killing my roaches or if they're just consuming the dead. Either way, I hate them and have a big problem on my hands.
Regardless... Loosing so many adults sucks. I don't know what to do, if I should try to save the colonies I have now. Normally my entomological fascination with figuring out exactly what the white maggots are would make this blow a little softer, but work is so busy and brain-intensive I haven't had a lot of spare brain-juice to expend on this sort of thing (one of the reasons I haven't been as active on here, tbh - for once I am in a job that gives me my fill of "figuring weird biology stuff out").
Egh. Is anyone has experience with roach-maggots, please let me know what you did about them. Any advice is helpful.
Thanks,
-Ellen