• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Rack Help

D

droogievesch

New member
Joined
May 7, 2006
Messages
219
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
38
Location
Wisconsin
Hi,

I tried looking for a husbandry section, but I must have overlooked it. I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction for a snake rack blueprint?

Thanks!

Jenna
 
Thanks!

I'm not making it because if you hand me a nail and a hammer you'll end up taking me to the emergency room. THANKFULLY my ever-so-gracious boy friend builds houses and is going to school for construction management, and I have volunteered him to help me (ie. do it for me).

I have an animal plastics rack now, do you think it would be better for him to just look at it and recreate it? That way I would have the tubs necessary and I would also have matching racks (okay, I'm kind of girlie).

Lastly, is melamine cheaper than wood? I'm afraid of untreated wood getting mildew or warping under the heat and sometimes humidity (from when the snakes are kind enough to dump their water bowls everywhere).

If I go the route of him recreating things, where would I find flex watt? I know that MG Reptiles has it, but I've heard he's been a little behind on orders and I'm not sure how things are going for him.
 
Actually finding an affordable source for PVC sheets has been somewhat problematic for many people, making DIY rack building an expensive proposition. There are a number of different rack styles, depending on the look and function you want. Check out Clay Davenport's site: arbreptiles.com.
 
Melamine is not cheaper than wood where I live. Plywood at 1/2'' is around $10-$20 a sheet depending on the quality, and the melamine $15-$35 depending on how thick it is, 1/2'' or 3/4''. We make racks out of the 1/2'' melamine when we can find it and we have 1 made out of 3/4'' because that was all we could get at the time. I will post a pic of ours for you.
Picture011.jpg

This one is 3/4'' melamine and it holds 28qt sterilite tubs.

Picture012.jpg

That is the flex watt heat tape, held down with aluminium tape.

Picture013.jpg

And this is the newest addition to our racks, it is a dimmer switch to control the heat.
 
My personal favorite DIY racks for balls at the moment are the ones I built most recently using the 41 quart sterilites. http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/41qt/index.shtml

These work well for the majority of balls, although I prefer something slightly deeper for my largest females.

As for flexwatt, I'd suggest going to either the Bean Farm or Reptile Basics for that. Matt at MG has been having serious issues getting orders filled and few would recommend him as a supplier any longer. Here are links for the other two places.
http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/41qt/index.shtml
http://www.beanfarm.com/
 
How recently did you make that Clay? I'm just trying to figure out if the estimated cost would be about the same or more due to inflation.

I'll send my boyfriend the plans and see if he has any of the materials on hand (he gets a lot of scrap wood when framing).

At this point in time I only see myself having balls, so how would we do one cord for one temperature? I also read that you said one thermostat can be used to regulate multiple racks as long as they are close to each other, is this assuming they are identical racks (same material, same heat source, same dimensions, etc) because my thermostat only has one probe, so I was wondering how it can handle everything.
 
I made two of those 2-3 months ago so the material cost is current for my area at least. I have no idea how much variance there is in different parts of the country.

The heaters can be wired together as seen in this design http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/iris_rack/iris_rack.shtml
However, in a rack that tall it's usually best to at least heat the top and bottom halves separately on two thermostats due to the temperature variation from floor to ceiling.
And yes, to control multiple racks on one thermostat, they do need to be identical and sitting side by side. The same goes for cages on a single Tstat.
That is where you get the most use of the dual thermostat setup. You can sit 2 or 3 of these racks together and heat the top half of all on one stat and the bottom half of all on another. Setting up the first rack is the only thermostat investment needed as long as you remain below the maximum wattage of the tstat you are using.
 
hhmoore said:
Actually finding an affordable source for PVC sheets has been somewhat problematic for many people, making DIY rack building an expensive proposition. There are a number of different rack styles, depending on the look and function you want. Check out Clay Davenport's site: arbreptiles.com.
Click to expand...

If you're going to go the PVC route, you might try contacting a local plastics distrubitor. I wanted to experiment with PVC and was able to get all pieces cut to size to build a 7 tub rack for 41qt tubs for $170. Figure in tubs and heat and it's about $300 for a 7 slot rack that holds the big tubs. It costs more than that to buy one that only holds 3 or 4. So it can be somewhat affordable compared to buying one.

But for inexpensive racks, wood or melamine are the way to go. But weight can definately be an issue though.
 
What I think I'm going to do is have him recreate the rack I have already. I only own 8 snakes, and the rack I own only has 6 shelves (I can keep 2 hatchlings on one shelf). If I were to build a huge rack like Clay's I wouldn't have enough animals to fill it. I will give him the directions so he can figure out how to compensate for heating.

Which leads me to another question: Heat tape. Is there a formula to know how much tape I'll need? I'm thinking of running heat tape along the back piece to give back heat to the tubs instead of belly heat. Would I measure from top to bottom and then times by two so I can have two columns?
 
droogievesch said:
What I think I'm going to do is have him recreate the rack I have already. I only own 8 snakes, and the rack I own only has 6 shelves (I can keep 2 hatchlings on one shelf). If I were to build a huge rack like Clay's I wouldn't have enough animals to fill it. I will give him the directions so he can figure out how to compensate for heating.
Click to expand...

More tubs = more snakes!! :thumbsup:

Which leads me to another question: Heat tape. Is there a formula to know how much tape I'll need? I'm thinking of running heat tape along the back piece to give back heat to the tubs instead of belly heat. Would I measure from top to bottom and then times by two so I can have two columns?
Click to expand...

The first rack I built I used back heat and it is way more inefficient. I found that the flexwatt had to run hotter longer to achieve adequate temps. Ever since I've used belly heat and have been way more satisfied. I would definately reconsider back heat.

BUT, if you do use back heat it depends on whether or not you're building your rack so the tubs slide in length ways, or width ways. If it's length ways, then I would run one piece of 11" heat tape down the back. If it's width ways, I'd probably run two 4" pieces. Hope this helps.
 
Thank you for letting me know the efficiency problem.

Flexwatt terrifies me honestly. I want to run away whenever I hear it's name and I don't know why. I guess I was hoping to do backheat because then I wouldn't have to worry too much about connecting pieces together and all that jazz...but maybe it's something that won't seem so confusing once I have my hands on it.

Clay used 1 foot of 11" tape on his shelves, I'm thinking that may be what I'm doing; otherwise I'll use a 4" strip along the back. The way the bins will be going in is width wise, so the shelves aren't very deep and I want some temp. gradient (or is this not as important in racks?)

I will be the first to admit I don't understand all the behind-the-scenes happenings of racks. I bought a pre-assembled rack because it was a plug it in and let it do its thing.
 
droogievesch said:
Thank you for letting me know the efficiency problem.

Flexwatt terrifies me honestly. I want to run away whenever I hear it's name and I don't know why. I guess I was hoping to do backheat because then I wouldn't have to worry too much about connecting pieces together and all that jazz...but maybe it's something that won't seem so confusing once I have my hands on it.

Clay used 1 foot of 11" tape on his shelves, I'm thinking that may be what I'm doing; otherwise I'll use a 4" strip along the back. The way the bins will be going in is width wise, so the shelves aren't very deep and I want some temp. gradient (or is this not as important in racks?)

I will be the first to admit I don't understand all the behind-the-scenes happenings of racks. I bought a pre-assembled rack because it was a plug it in and let it do its thing.
Click to expand...

Flexwatt can be intimidating if you've never really worked with electrical stuff before. But it's very safe; if it wasn't, no one would use it. Especially when there are collections worth $1000's. Clay's site is great for flexwatt info, just do what he says and you'll be fine. :yesnod:

A temp gradient is still ideal, you want the animal to be able to choose its temp. If you're installing them width wise (so the rack is not as deep), I would probably run a piece of 4" along the bottom the length of the tub. This way the heat is on the back 1/3 of the cage and you should still be able to get a gradient.
 
Thanks!

The boyfriend and I have figured out the logistics of it, so now we need to get the materials and start hacking away :)
 
Jenna, I made my bigger rack out of melamine. It's heavy, but it works and I only spent $104 total on the wood. I'm terrified of Flexwatt too (thus the reason I only buy AP racks), so I bought ZooMed heat cable and wound it through routed grooves in the shelves. It's controlled by a Helix and works great.
 
JenHarrison said:
Jenna, I made my bigger rack out of melamine. It's heavy, but it works and I only spent $104 total on the wood. I'm terrified of Flexwatt too (thus the reason I only buy AP racks), so I bought ZooMed heat cable and wound it through routed grooves in the shelves. It's controlled by a Helix and works great.
Click to expand...

I'm curious- Did routing the heat cable into the wood cause heat to radiate downward through the melamine and into the tub below causing any heating issues?
 
Back
Top