Just built a New Rack System

I built a rack system over the weekend. Here's a couple of pictures of it. First pic is the stack of stuff. Second pic is the finished rack. Can't wait to fill it.

It is 47 1/2 inches long and 15 5/8 inches deep.
Total cost was around $191. It only took me about an hour to drill & screw together. Then I had to get someone to help me set it up because I couldn't lift it by myself. That thing is heavy!

Rack system

Hello,
hey how did you run heat through that rack...I jsut havent been able to see a rack with heat ran through it yet to build my own. And will a thermostat hold all the heat tape at 83 degrees through the whole rack? Any info would be much appreciated! [email protected]

I haven't run the heat yet. I'm going to use ZooMed's Reptiheat cable 15W. I'm going to drill a hole at the lower back of each shelf and run the cable. The bad thing is I'll have a cord for each shelf. I keep my snake room at 80° all the time so I'm only using a 15W heat cable and it should bring the back of the tubs to about 85-88°. I'm using one right now on a metal shelving system that I presently use for my KSBs and it's doing just fine.

Snake rack

Is heat cable better than heat tape? I have Ball's and corns...and slowly getting into emerald tree boas and green tree pythons....But would heat cable be better?

I tried heat cable for the first time. My thought process is that it would be easier to router a groove in the back of each shelf for belly heat. It was not nearly as easy as I thought. I made another rack a couple of weeks later and just glued the 4in heat tape to the surface of each shelf with heavy duty adhesive. It was pretty easy to assemble, now we will see if the heat tape holds up to the trays sliding in and out. My trays don't fit real tight, there is a 1/16 gap to let them slide easy. This is a sub adult to adult rack so the gap is okay. To answer the other question it seems as though the heat tape on the lower shelves is a little lower in temp than on the higher shelves. This doesn't present a problem because the heat gradient is from about 90 if the snake were to burrow under the aspen and lay right on top of the heat tape to about 70 on the cool side, burrowed under the aspen. On top of the aspen the gradient is from 82-85 on the warm side to 70 on the cool side. So the snakes can simply regulate themselves, most of them burrow into the middle after they have eaten and when I check them they are about 82 degrees. After they have digested for a few days they are more on the cool side at about 72-75 degrees.