What are your best results for roaches' heat tape temperature?

[fluxlizard]

Hey guys.

So, I've had roaches for about a dozen years now, but never had heated shelves until about a month ago to keep them on. I always just relied on my building temperatures and got lots of roaches certain times of year and reduced the population other times.

After a month on heat tape set at 95 I have to say, I'm not so impressed in the results. I'm not seeing the incredible growth rates I was imagining compared to what I expereienced before without the heat tape. In fact, to be honest, I'm not sure I see much difference at all compared to the pre-heat tape years. Which has me thinking, maybe I've got my temps too high.

I'm also not sure I'm remembering growth rate correctly- it varied quite a bit depending on time of year and ambient temps in the building, and I had a bunch of colonies going, feeding out several thousand to ten thousand per day this time last year. So could be my idea of growth and reproductive rate was a little skewed because of the volume I was dealing with compared to now (now I've got only 4 tubs- 1 tub for each colony of lobsters, hissers, hybrids and dubia). The dubia are perhaps the biggest dissapointment- they seem hardly larger than a month ago.

What temp do you guys aim for/feel you get optimal growth and reproduction with?

 

[fluxlizard]

No love on my question? Anybody?

I was looking at my dubia this morning- maybe they just feel small because my hybrids look similar but are so huge compared to dubia. There are a lot of shed skins around in the tub with the dubia. I ordered 10,000 nymphs so they started pretty small (size of my pinky nail).

Guess I'll give it a couple more months before I decide how I'm doing.

Would be really interested in knowing what temps you guys feel are optimal though...

 

[reptoman]

I set my temp control on my flexwatt heat tape to just under 100F and it seems to work great for dubia, madagascar hissers, halloween hissers. When I am trying to propagate crickets I get tons of eggs in my cups of coco fiber with the cricket bin ontop of the same run of heat tape. I have always used heat tape for the roaches because that's what you hear most of the time. I never thought the colony would grow if I left them off the heat. I would rather not use the heat tape if its possible to let them go without.

 

[Saldarya]

Same as Brian, Heat tape for Dubias is about 100 deg, obviously a bit less in the tub itself. When they are not on the heat the production drops significantly.

 

[fuzzhc]

I have mine sitting on top of a fridge in my room lol. Works a treat