Aphid at Cactus root

I am a landscape designer. I like flowers, trees, all the plants. Furthermore, create my own blog about gardening and trying to promote it. Also, I like to grow organic food and microgreens. I’m like to change gardening ideas with other gardeners, theirs oppinione is very important for my develop.
I have 2 cats, they always eat my flowers))
I read a lot about plant and growing. It’s all of me and all that I love.


On New Year holidays, I had free time to notice that my poor astro. baby cactus became flatter and smaller. When I removed them out of the pot, I got the answer: aphid stayed at the root. I always use plant identifier, when I need to identify new plant. This awful insect suck the juices of root for food. I think it was because I rarely sprayed the chemical insecticide. I usually use the organic one which may not be strong enough.

After realizing the problem, I also washed and cleansed the cactus root in water. I tried to remove all soil and dust from the root softly. If do severely, the root might be damaged and the recovery will take longer time.
Here is the cactus after I scrubbed all soil. It becomes bare root now.

I'll leave them like this for several days and plant in the pot later. Hope you guys will have time to care your cactus, not ignoring them like I did.

It's checklist, what I should do with my plant:
1. Remove from pot
2. Clean in water
3. Clean from all of damaged items
4. Еransplant into a new pot