Axle Grease and roaches

[peterUK]

I have a colony of lobsters (Naupheta cinerea) in a bare plastic container and egg crates, I have a 3inch band of Vaseline around the top but have been finding the accasional escapee's in the 2 containers below which contain dubia and discoids.
Today while catching a few as feeders I noticed a couple of nymphs and an adult calmly walk over the vaseline to the rim of the container and then walk back again. This is branded vaseline and is quite a thick layer but it seems to have 'set' after just 3 days.

Question: Would axle grease work better than vaseline, if so would light or heavy duty grease be better ?

Anyone had this problem before ?

ps. I have posted this on a few different forums, so please if you post on one forum PLEASE dont double post on another.

 

[Xaranx]

You shouldn't have a real thick layer, that isn't how you do it, thin even layer should work a lot better. You will need to re-apply occasionally.

Perhaps olive oil.

 

[jen650s]

Try Tanglefoot it is a commercial product intended to keep ants out of trees. It works well for ants and they are the most persistent climbers I've ever encountered.

 

[cacoseraph]

you want something LESS viscuous not more viscuous



plus... these are FEEDERS... do youwant you pets to eat axle grease? i use olive oil. EVO. works great. need to reapply every 2-3 weeks though.

 

[Frédérick]

how do u apply olive oil on the sides? I mean, doesn't it drip down and make things all messy, or you apply such a little quantity that it stays there?

 

[cacoseraph]

how do u apply olive oil on the sides? I mean, doesn't it drip down and make things all messy, or you apply such a little quantity that it stays there?

little quantity. i get a few drops on my finger tip and rub it into a band about 3-4" wide (i have some hissers in with my lobs and vice versa) or wide enough to be about 100-125% the longest roach you keep. to do a 3-4"(7-10cm) band that is about 7' (er 2.1-2.2m) long i probably only use about 20 drops of oil.

you do have to reapply every 2-4 weeks depending on temperature and how often the roaches try to cross the boundry (the more they try the faster they use it up)


you might have to experiment with diff oils depending on the temp range. i tried olive/soy hydrid... it was WAY too thin... i had to reapply it every 2-3 DAYS! but if it got to the point where i had roaches that were still active at ~45*F (er ~7*C) i could probably use the olive/soy oil to better effect



if i do use too much it will indeed drip down the side. but it is human food grade, totally non-toxic to the roaches, and does smear like vaseline when you wipe it up... so it is not a big deal. i still have the first 10g glass aquarium i ever got for bugs... and it still has vaseline impregnated substrate and vase in the corners... i am probably going to throw the damn thing away cuz it is so hard to totally clean vaseline up! i have another 40+G cage that has vaseline in it. it is too valuable for me to scrap... and it has thus far resisted my best efforts to totally clean it up from a previous owners vaseline roach barrier


*shudder*

 

[Frédérick]

It must work well and very inexpensive too! I thought about something else, just to take a towel, put some oil on it, and make it glide along the walls, with a good 3" of oil width...now this methods depends heavily on the type of fabric, if you have a super smooth plastic surface this might not work as well as with a porous plastic side. anyways, your method works best i think lol

 

[cacoseraph]

It must work well and very inexpensive too! I thought about something else, just to take a towel, put some oil on it, and make it glide along the walls, with a good 3" of oil width...now this methods depends heavily on the type of fabric, if you have a super smooth plastic surface this might not work as well as with a porous plastic side. anyways, your method works best i think lol

i used to use a paper towel... but i was stupid enough to put little vent holes in the place i apply the oil to. the vent holes are rough enough to rip the paper towel so i have to use my fingers. using a papertowel would undoubtedly be easier.



also! a not about vent hole placement! in theory, even with a perfectly slippery barrier, a roach could use the vent holes as foot holds in my setup to climb past the barrier. easiest solution is to not make vent holes where your oil barrier is going to be =P

 

[peterUK]

You shouldn't have a real thick layer, that isn't how you do it, thin even layer should work a lot better. You will need to re-apply occasionally.

Perhaps olive oil.

I am now wondering if the room is too dry and causing the vaseline to 'skin over'.
My T's and Roaches are in an outside insulated shed which is heated by an 2KW oil filled radiator and it is kinda dry in there. I may try to place some sort of container (thinking of a large ceramic dogs water bowl ?) on top of the radiator filled with water to try and humidify the shed.