Heating a Sterilite box for dubias?

[Baelari]

My dubias should be arriving soon, and I'm prepping their bin. It's a 64qt (I think) pink Sterilite storage bin. What is the best way to heat it? I have an 8W ZooMed heat pad, but I worry about melting the plastic or starting a fire. I suppose I could stick the box out on my balcony for the time being, but I need to figure out something before winter.

[Eric Walker]

I bred dubia and laterlis roaches for a few years. I allways used either the heat rope and coiled it on the shelf of an aluminum shelveing unit and placed the tubs right on top of the rope. Or I used the flexwat heat tape. I allways used the stuff that is do it yourself. the stuff that comes in the rolls and you cut it to length. I used the 3 inch stuff for the roaches not the bigger pads. Eventhough I think the stuff I used was 24 watt. You shouldn't have to worry about melting the tubs. Right now I have a ball python rack I built out of milk boad ( the plywood sheeting that has that 16 of an inch white plastic lamanate layer on one side ) I made it so the lamanate layer is all on the inside of the shelves. I have the bigger 12" flexwatt wired to each shelf for my tubs to slide in on top of. I have no problems with the tubs getting to hot or melting. I did also wire a reostat into the unit so i could turn down the power, reduceing the heat output when needed.

now those pink tubs, do they have that same rough texture to the inside that the blue rubbermade ones have? Im not to sure about the dubia but the lateralis could climb right up the sides of those even though they are not suspose to be able to climb.. I allways used the clear smooth ones just to be safe. Dubia are much heavier bodied and might not be able to hang on but if it has a rough texture I would be cautious

[Baelari]

It's smooth on the inside, I made sure to check before I got it.

[sajane]

I use the clear plastic sterilite tubs with a window cut out on top. I use a hot glue gun to attach screen over the window.I have used the 8 watt heat mat directly on the plastic , but itdoes tend to warp and make washing the tubs hard. Now I have taped the heat mat on the shelf and either use the little feet that come with the mat or an old oven rack to raise the tub up a bit. this way I can pick the tubs up and carry them around or get them wet without a cord attached.

[Baelari]

So, I've had my heat mat on the bottom of my tub for a few days, and the inside of the box is still room temp. I read on some arachnid forum you could affix the mat to a plate of glass from a picture frame, and set it inside the box. this seems like it would provide an escape ladder for the dubias, and potentially would get the mat too hot. Thoughts?

Where do you get the heat rope?

[sajane]

if you use a temp gun on the heat mat you will see that the temp is 100 degrees or more. the heat mat wont raise the air temp in the box it will just heat the substrate. to heat the air temp i would use a light bulb hanging above

[Baelari]

I see. There's no substrate for the dubias, but it does make the plastic at the bottom warm.

If I need the air temperature to go up (or is the surface temp enough to get them to breed?), what kind of bulb would be good for the bugs? I think I have nylon or plastic window mesh over the hole right now, but that wouldn't be difficult to change.

[sajane]

i dont know about dubias, but my crix do fine with the heat mat with no substrate. The air temp is under 70 degrees but the plastic tub floor is 90 or more degrees. I put a container of moist dirt on the heat mat area