heat tape and ceramic tile

[Chewbecca]

This may be a silly question, but right now we're using paper towel for substrate.

Problem is, everytime we feed crickets or roaches, if they aren't eaten right away, they get up underneath the paper towels (GRRRRRR)!
It's annoying as hell. If they get under the paper towels, then the leos don't see them. If they don't see them, they won't go for them.

Anyway...so, we're considering placing tile down for their substrate.

But we use 6 watt heat tape. Will this heat tape be able to heat through the tiles?
I know this is probably a silly question, but I seriously don't know the answer.

I'm just so sick of being greeted in the morning by a roach that was not eaten.
UGH.

 

[OhioGecko]

If you are using natural tile yes. It will take a while to get up to temp but then the tile does a good job of holding the heat. You will use more electric using tile.

Also switching to tile will require watering of your wet hides more often The tile definately drys out the habitat.

The tile is easy to clean. We sweep out our tile cages once a week and spot clean with Chlorhexidine.

 

[Chewbecca]

Thank you!

Do you know about how long it takes for the tile to get up to proper temperatures?

 

[OhioGecko]

Thank you!

Do you know about how long it takes for the tile to get up to proper temperatures?

I'm not positive, I remember checking every 10 min. but I think it took it a couple hours on our Helix.

I totally forgot about this:
If your not using a porportional thermostat it may go quicker. I actually called Helix on the temp and they have some sort of built in memory on how long it took to heat the cage and ours took longer than the Helix was programmed to understand. But after the cage stablized we unplugged the Helix for a couple of minutes and plugged it back in so the heat up time was dramatically less and the cage temps were OK after that. I have since swithced to a Ranco non-porportioanl on the tile and it does much better.