Heat tape failure

[Sauzo]

I personally think its either a probe issue of it fell off the tape or its a T-stat issue. All heat tapes will have some variation in temp at spots. Its the nature of heat tapes but no heat tape is going to have a variation from 89F to 130F lol. More like a few degrees here and there. Have you physically felt the heat tape to see if it is that hot? I mean you will know the feel of 130F by hand lol. And like others said, try a different t-stat to see if it fixes it. While I agree Jump Start t-stats aren't high end, I have one that has been going for about 2 years now with no problems. Of course I also have 4 Herpstats which are my real workhorses.

[Snizards]

I use Hydrofarms too! And I'm currently having the opposite issue with them, they aren't reaching the set temperature. Honestly I suspect it's just the cheap build of them, I've been reading some things about them failing after a few months of use and lots of other complaints. I'm planning on switching to a herpstat pretty soon, I would recommend that to you as well. More expensive than hydrofarm, but they last longer and you can plug in multiple heat pads (or in your case tape) to them and you can even choose different settings for each row.

[PitOnTheProwl]

I use Hydrofarms too! And I'm currently having the opposite issue with them, they aren't reaching the set temperature. Honestly I suspect it's just the cheap build of them, I've been reading some things about them failing after a few months of use and lots of other complaints. I'm planning on switching to a herpstat pretty soon, I would recommend that to you as well. More expensive than hydrofarm, but they last longer and you can plug in multiple heat pads (or in your case tape) to them and you can even choose different settings for each row.

You can o that already as long as you don't overload it

I also have hyrofarms that have been running several years without problems.

[chip07]

It sounds like what happened the other night with my one rack. The herpstat woke me up in the middle of the night going off because the temp was too low. But when I used the temp gun it was around 120-130 where the hot spot was supposed to be. The probe had slipped off which made the heat crank up to try and reach the right temp. So I had dangerous temperatures even though the herpstat thought it was too cold and it only seemed to be getting hotter in there before I figured out the issue

[Snizards]

You can o that already as long as you don't overload it

I also have hyrofarms that have been running several years without problems.

Well turns out the cold air was hitting the outside of the probe. My hydrofarms are working fine now after I stuffed the probe in between the heat pad and the tank lol.
And yeah, you're right... and now I'm mad that I never thought of that lol. I have 5, one for each tank, except my bearded dragon.