Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,

Does anyone use 41 qt. tubs in their racks? I am considering using a rack (two tubs per shelf) but I have not seen any assembled racks available that accomidate this tub size in that sort of arrangement. I have also looked into constructing my own, but have not found any melamine shelves deep enough (36". Is there another material that I can or should use?
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Ignore the smiley. It was supposed to be a parenthesis.
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http://www.theherpzone.com

I use the 41qt but I wouldn't recommend two per shelf specially with melamine it would sag to much IMO. I don't have any pics of my rack due to the fact that I am building a new rack for the 41qt. I will post when it is done.
Jeremy

Progress so far!

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i use the 41qt. sterilites in several melamine racks that i made.there are a 10 level rack with a appox. 35" x 5 3/4" openings,the 41 fits in sideways.the 27 and 12qt. are appox. the same height so in any level you have three choices: one 41qt. or one each 27 and 12qt. or three 12qts.

BTW i just picked up some 41qt. tubs "holiday edition" at wal-mart for $4.00.have fun!

Here are a couple pics of two racks that I believe use the 41qt. tubs. I only went 7 tubs high per rack b/c of the length of available melamine at the time. And I agree that I would be careful if going with a design where there are two 41qt. tubs per shelf as you may have some sagging issues. Of course you could always reinforce the shelves to prevent sagging. But with melamine being so heavy I would stick with one per shelf. Just my opinion.

Hope that helps.

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Michael Rehker

Middle Tennessee Reptiles
Website Coming Soon!

"Which of us has not been stunned by the beauty of an animal's skin or its flexibility in motion?"
--Marianne Moore

I have not built a rack around the 41 qt. Sterilite but do have some ideas. As I mentioned in another post yesterday, when boxes get over 32" long it is often very difficult to build racks and utilize the material well.

One method is to do what the other poster showed - have the sides not as deep as the shelves. This works pretty well. You could even go as extreme as what I did with this rack, using strips of plywood for form vertical supports.

And then there is the design that Bighurt showed, although that one takes some time, tools, and talent.

Lastly, I have found that hollow-core door blanks lend themselves to an inexpensive and fairly light rack for larger boxes.

You could easily build a rack from 36" HC door blanks and even build it so it can be broken down so it could be moved.

That's sort of what I did here, but this rack is 32" so I can fit it through the 36" door of my snake room.

I got the idea from Riobravoreptiles.com where I first saw this rack:

He shows how to cut down the HC doors and build such a rack on his site. This would work for the 41 qt. box but understand even though the rack will be light it won't be easy to move. It will have a footprint of about 36" x 35" and won't fit easily into most rooms.

Hope this helps.

And I agree with Chris (as I do about 98% of the time) that using HC doors saves not only money but a ton of weight. It amazes me how light my racks are that are made out of HC doors as compared to melamine. Plus they are really easy to work with and use.

I built the two racks below for right around $200 including tubs, wood and heat. And they work great!

But definitely use the advice Chris and BigHurt have given you. These two really know what they're talking about. I've learned alot from them both, especially Chris, whom I've gotten to know pretty good the last several years!

Anyways, hope that helps some.

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Michael Rehker

Middle Tennessee Reptiles
Website Coming Soon!

"Which of us has not been stunned by the beauty of an animal's skin or its flexibility in motion?"
--Marianne Moore