I don't see why an aquarium is bad for the snake myself. Providing you have the proper range of temps, humidity and a secure lid, what the container the snake is caged in really doesn't matter. There are pros and cons about glass aquariums but they can be overcome or not applicable in some cases. Glass can over heat, if allowed to be in direct sunlight. It can crack over the undertank heater as well. They can be difficult to keep proper humidity within them, usually because if a light is used to heat the warm side of the tank, the heat light tends to burn all the humidity out of the tank. Also, humidity often escaped out of the screen top. But covering part of the screen with a towel or cloth, tends to balance out what evaporates through the top of the screen.

Another con against glass aquariums is they take alot of space, are a pain to clean and are difficult to make escape proof. Advantages of glass aquariums is they are easy to get, make great displays for your snake to be viewed (though most times snakes hide anyway, unless looking for food or exploring their tank).

For the most part, snake owners use simple setups, usually in shoebox sized plastic containers for small or young snakes and sweaterbox sized containers for adult and larger snakes. These are easy to clean, move around and store in 'rack' systems that converse space while still providing the snake with all it's care requirements (heat, warm/cold areas, hides and humidity). However, it isn't necesssary to build a rack system if you only have one snake and don't plan to get many more. I started off with a couple snakes, now two years later I have 10, so I am planning on building myself a rack to store them all, instead of the mismash of various sized plastic containers.

How to build a rack, isn't too difficult, or so I have heard ,having not actually built one myself, for snakes. I did build a shelving unit for my crested geckos and learned it is best to have three sides to a tall shelf, not just two (didn't take into account I wasn't going to be screwing in all the shelves into the side panels, but instead, just resting the shelves on ledges screwed to the sides....needed to put some cross pieces on the back to keep the two sides from falling away, thus causing hte entire thing to collapse). Now that I have done my gecko shelf this way, I realize, though the plan seened good at the start, it would have been better to use the thicker shelves and screw then into the sides. But it is working for me so far, though it does sag in the middle (made it so I can get three cages per shelf).

My snake rack design I hope to be better designed than my gecko rack. Nothing really complicated in designing it though. Basically figured out what size(s) of rubbermaid containers I will need, and can get from the local Walmart or HomeDepot, measured them and drew a basic shelf. I figured out how many shelves I wanted, the total height (plus adding thickness of each shelf to overall height) to figure out the length the two end sides of the shelves have to be. Next, figured out how long each shelf needs to be and how deep. (the depth of the shelf is also needed for the depth of the sides as well, unless you want the shelves sticking out from the sides, which I have seen some racks do, though I don't see the benefit in having it like this, other than saving a bit of money on wood, but probably not enough to make it worth banging your head or arms on the pretruding shelves LOL. Unless there is another benefit to it that I just don't know about, which is very much possible).

Of course, the size of each shelf will depend on whether or not you plan on keeping the lids on each of the containers. Many snake racks don't have lids on the containers, instead using the bottom of the shelf above it to act as lid. This means you have to drill holes either in the shelf itself or the container sides to ensure ventilation. Some actually use pegboard for their shelves but I don't think this will work on long shelving units as it doesn't have alot of strength and can sag (unless a central support is used)

Caster wheels for the bottom is a must. It makes moving the shelf around much easier, especially with large racks. Even if you don't plan to move it ever, once built, you will find at some point in the future ,you want to move it. Get the caster wheels that have locks..this way you don't have to worry about the cage shifting on it's own.

Oh, one very important aspect. If you are going to build the rack in one room, and have it moved to another, make sure you can get the assembled rack through the doorways BEFORE you build it. This does become frustrating learning,after spending an afternoon getting the rack all built, only to find it is 2" too wide/heigh to fit through the doorway of the snake room. When trying to figure out if your rack will be small enough to fit through the doorway, don't forget to added a couple extra inches to the size of the cage (if we need a 3' long rack to house the containers, we tend to forget this inadvertantly is the inside length, and forget that there is wood on either end that can be as thick as an inch. Thus, if we go by inside length, the outside length (basically the thickness of the wood used for the shelf, which can be anywhere between 1/2" to 6/8ths of an inch, times two (too sides of the cage added together, would range between 1" to 1 1/4" depending on the thickness of the wood used)

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