Just wondering what people think is the best way to heat your dubia roach colony. I just ordered some dubias and should be getting them this week. I live in Florida and am planning on keeping them in a closet, the house temp is set to be around 75 degrees on average so it would be best if I gave them some additional heat source right? I looked around the board and some websites and saw a few ideas for heating like heat tape and undertank heaters and stuff like that but ive never used any type of heat source like that other than my light bulbs for the bearded dragons. So im just wondering what would be best for me to use and were can i get one? Thanks in advance for the help.
I raise Dubia and use a human style heat pad under the breeder tote and a zoo med under tank heater for the feeder tote. both work real well. When it's warm I don't heat the feeder tote because as long as it's above 65 degrees they only need heat in order to keep the temp up around 95 so they breed well. When it's warmer I put the human heating pad on low, when it's colder I put it on high so I don't need a thermostat.
Heres the thermo I was talking about, well on proexotics its $17 I found a cheaper site, but if your getting all the tape and stuff might as well get it from them to save on shipping.
I mean its not the best thermo in the world, you cant controll it by actual digi temp so its up to you what ya want to do. U can only set it to low, med, high and wait it out and see how it heats it up, I keep mine a little past the medium and it stays around 88-93 degrees in there all the time
Make sure you get the heat tape, foil tape, clip set.....
I raise Dubia and use a human style heat pad under the breeder tote and a zoo med under tank heater for the feeder tote. both work real well. When it's warm I don't heat the feeder tote because as long as it's above 65 degrees they only need heat in order to keep the temp up around 95 so they breed well...
I should restate heating my feeder tote. When it's cooler, I live near the north coast of CA. where during the summer we can have one day that is 85 degrees and the next be 60 degrees, so I heat my feeder tote with an under tank heater on the cooler days. I do this because my dubia are precious and I don't want to take a chance on stressing them too much or killing them if the get too cold. My lobster roaches I don't heat at all and they just won't die, the Dubia are too expensive and I've waited too long to get a healthy colony going that I don't want to endanger either my breeders or my feeders.
Thanks for asking the question, and sorry for any confusion.
Human heating pads and overhead heat emitters will work. I personally house all my colonies in a climate controlled shed, and that seems to work for me. This allows me to control the humidity levels much more accurately, as opposed to just heating the bins indevidually. If you have a small closet or cuboard, you may be able to replicate this setup....although, its a little overkill for one roach bin.
I raise Dubia and use a human style heat pad under the breeder tote and a zoo med under tank heater for the feeder tote. both work real well. When it's warm I don't heat the feeder tote because as long as it's above 65 degrees they only need heat in order to keep the temp up around 95 so they breed well. When it's warmer I put the human heating pad on low, when it's colder I put it on high so I don't need a thermostat.
We keep our home is Southern California very cold year around. The warmest we ever let it get to is 75 degrees, but we personally prefer between 68 and 70 degrees. I am currently using a heating pad, but with the vents, my colony is only getting to 80 to 85 degrees. My husband was wondering if we could drill holes completely around a lid and use this as ventilation instead of the mesh screen hole we have in the center? The holes would be close together, just on the outer edges of the lid rather than the middle... Any advice?