Reptile & Amphibian Forums

getting ready folks. hoping to filler'up. this i my newest addition to my kingsnake empire-lol. i needed the space because i am buying the little guys to raise up. i wired flex watt heat tape to the back. all my others have belly heat. but i was thinking that the shelves are only about 6" high. there will be enough heat. and they are getting 84* in the back and 76* on the front.but i am going to keep an eye on this. don't want the pinkies popn' out the wrong end.it holds 32-6qt tubs my next project is to build a 12 month-adult size rack and i am done with the building for awhile. the big shelf at the top is so i can work on changing the bedding and just an all around work surface to clean and all that bizz. if i can add a urinal to the snake room i will never have to leave hahahaha thanks for lookn'
jason

Getting ready for the "show season" early. If only I had room for 1 of those. I think the wife'll allow me 1 more snake. I'm torn between a MBK and a GBK. LOL!

reako45

i found that once you get over twenty or so they lose count. then it is just a matter of hiding the credit card bills
hahahaha thanks
jason

>>i found that once you get over twenty or so they lose count. then it is just a matter of hiding the credit card bills
>>hahahaha thanks
>>jason

Oh, but when they do find out.. Just happened to me this weekend. When the wife ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Hey Jason, that's a great rack.

thanks it is now a prototype i'm calling it the FR STEAMER 2000 lol hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
hahahahahahahhaha
hahahahahahaha
thanks bro
jason

wonder if i could sell the design to romco i could dehydrate bananas-make chips hahaha

Nice looking Rack!! I love building racks, it means More snakes are on the way!! I just built a new rack to hold my adult Kings & Milks and its filling up fast. I will post up some pix soon to show you guys. Let us know how the back heating works out for you.

~ Mike

nm

Hi again, I like the rack, but, that much heat tape really worries me.

When using heat tape, you must consider the potential. Heat tape is not regulated by a set temp. It simply increases heat. So its wanting to add heat, to whatever the ambient is. Its constantly attempting to do that. (its drawback)

Of course a thermostat will regulate that. That is until it fails. Then that much heat tape will raise the temps FAST.

I would use much smaller tape. Amounts that do not have the possibility to overheat. You can still use a thermostat. But if it fails the tape does not have the potential to kill quickly or at all. In my baby rack, I only have a small corner heated by heat strips. A three inch by six inch corner on cages about the size of yours. And I use a reostate.

Worse case is, you will lose your house. Yes, that happened to a friend of mine. His thermostat failed, the tape fried the cage and snake room. He had a patio door leading into his snake room. He came home and noticed it was black, so he opened the door and had a backdraft or flashover or whatever you call it. It was not nice. The snake room ran out of air, when he opened the door, end of that story.

So use as little as possible, not as much as possible. In reality, snakes do not need much added heat. The key is room temperature.

Also, the design you used is better for controlled rooms temps and not so much for the use of heat tape. You have all but the front of the cage insulated with the rack, that will not allow for a choice of temps. If you use a regional heating source(heat tape, hot spots from lites etc. Its best to only inclose or insulate part of the cage. That is, have half or more of the sweater boxes expose to open air(room temps) to allow a range of temps. Cheers

What I have to do.
History-I started planning my snake room June of 05. I had no snakes at the time and had been away from the hobby for over ten years. A lot had changed.
Choice #1 what type of snake answer-kings
#2 room- garage
#3 how many- under 100
#4 enclosures-plastic tubs in racks
#5 heating-flex watt tape with thermostat
#6 cooling-portable a/c unit
#7 food supply-rodent pro f/t mice
#8 bedding- went from news paper to aspen to now I am using paper towels (babies)-aspen adults.
Now these were the basic things to consider. Now I have over 40 kings and one bull. The big racks have belly heat controlled by thermostats. Small racks – back heat all controlled by thermostats.
Temp ranges 41qt 84-73 hi/low
Temp ranges 6qt 84-76 hi/low
I would love to just pull the plugs and let it be what it may but I think that snakes need to be able to regulate their temp. So I chose to allow the temp ranges above. I do not regulate the ambient temps at this time. I will only intervene if the temps fall below 50 or rise above 90.

So should I pull the 11” tape off -put 3” on or let the ambient temps range from low 70s am- high 80s pm? Or both.
I am just thinking out loud hoping to pull the loose ends together. I just want to put what they need in front of them and let them (the snakes) work with it as they normaly would or as it is their nature to do so. As of now all of my snakes are eating properly, shedding properly, no worms tics mites or other problems. They are putting on size as they should. But I know that if the temps are not right this will lead the way to many of the problems that I listed above. Stressed out snakes die. They do not come out of the egg stressed. They are pushed by people who do not provide the proper captive environment. I just want to hear if this is the proper thinking or am I off base. Or do I really have my cart in front of my horse.

This is what I am thinking now
(6qt tub)(3” tape)(6qt tub)(6qt tub)(3” tape)(6qt tub)
(6qt tub)(3” tape)(6qt tub)(6qt tub)(3” tape)(6qt tub)
(6qt tub)(3” tape)(6qt tub)(6qt tub)(3” tape)(6qt tub)
(6qt tub)(3” tape)(6qt tub)(6qt tub)(3” tape)(6qt tub)
(6qt tub)(3” tape)(6qt tub)(6qt tub)(3” tape)(6qt tub)
ect…
this would give each tub one corner of heat and cut down on the chance of killing the snakes or my family in the event of a thermostat failing- two strips down the back. I can control how far away from the tape the tub is by about 0 - 7 ”thanks for any reply from anyone with experience. jason wilson

All you have to do is, control the temps just like you said(intervene) Let the room go down to a low in winter(55F), and rise to the hotter limit in summer. 90F is too high in my opinion. for tightly enclosed kingsnakes, I am sure most here would recomend 85F as a max. Even at that, prolonged exposure to that temp can and will render your males infertile.(heat stressed reproductive failure) I would be very careful adding heat in a garage situation(lack of insulation)

If your garage gets 90F and you have heat strips, get some trash bags ready and start looking for replacements.

Are you in SoCal, cause if you are. You better get a much larger air conditioner. You will not need it often, but you will when one of those dumb super hot June days strikes right in the middle of june gloom. All your breeding and some of your snakes will be done for.

The perfect temps for kingsnakes(in captivity are) room temps, boosted with some small area of higher heat.

So One thing is now understood better then ten years ago, HEAT KILLS.

Also, I am confused(common with me)(not the smartest tack in the box) Why would you plan so much when you do not know whats needed? My suggestion is, start with the basics and work towards excellence. Hey thats a cool sentence, it kinda works for all things. Cheers

Also, I am confused(common with me)(not the smartest tack in the box) Why would you plan so much when you do not know whats needed? My suggestion is, start with the basics and work towards excellence. Hey thats a cool sentence, it kinda works for all things. Cheers

i do not under stand what you are asking here:
"Why would you plan so much when you do not know whats needed"?
could you please explain? i would be glad to clear up your confusion on the matter

thanks for the help i am going to scale down the tape and let you know how it goes
jason

That is one heck of alot of heater for little baby snakes, even if the rack is in a cool room.

You could use less heater and put a pegboard back on the rack.

I used to provide more heater than necessary and rely on a controller to keep the level safe. That is, until my toddler son turned up all the dials one day.. Fortunately I intervened before it was too late for the snakes. My new goal was to size the heating system such that the snakes can be OK if the heaters are cranked up, or if the room gets warm one day when you aren't there and the thermostat fails. That is easily done in large cages, but takes more thought to acheive that in small shoeboxes.

For kings/milks, less is more, and it takes just a very small heated area for a baby snake to make use of it. You might be better off taping the 3" Flexwatt to each shelf way in the back to give the snakes about 1" or 2" wide strip of belly heat under each box.

Good luck. Nice rack contruction BTW.

hey thanks i am going to scale it down please read the post under fr and let me know what you think again thanks jason

I think you should use the 3" or 4" wide heater. If you need more heat on some really cold days, insulate the rack back and sides, or else place a pegborad piece on the front (leaned up against the rack.)

Placing 3/4" styrene foam pieces on the outside back of the rack will do wonders for you on cold days.

I was wondering if you used precut melamine boards to build your rack? I'd like to build a rack for adult kings, and I've never built a rack before. The less cutting I have to do the better.(LOL) What size tubs and boards did you use for your adult rack? Thanks for the info!
-Phil

this is a copy of a post from last week. hope it helps.let me know how it turns out!good luck
p.s. i will get out there and take some pics of the side so you can get a better view. i was thinking about building them for some extra money but this is what i will build and every one i spoke to wanted something a little like this and a little like that so i didn't. but if some one is willing to pic up i could do it in a day. just like i have here.

Posted by: xbertmouser at Sat Feb 25 09:02:39 2006 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ]

i built it a few months ago.this is my first time breeding snakes so i wanted to do it as cheap as i could. i took 16x36" shelves 11 total and 4-16x96" shelves. put the small shelf on the ground-screw the 4 long ones(legs) to each corner on two sides.set your tub(i used 41qt from wall-mart)on the shelf-add about a 1/8" shim across the corners of the tub and the center. this space will comp you for the flex watt later.just keep going until you get to the top. i cut mine off at ten units. now i have a breeding rack that is four wide and ten high-my thought is that i will keep the male in the far left and his three females to the right of him.i am also building some grow out racks and some other combos. i just want to be ahead of the collection as far as space goes. when i was young i never had enough space for my snakes and they suffered. not now. hope this helps others.but to answer your question it is just the standard stock size from the local hardware store. i got it real cheap from a close out dealer. cool thing is i never had to cut anything but the hight of the four legs. so this whole system has 16-cuts all the same size. it only cost me $105.00 for the wood. now if i can only fill it with thayeri!!!! if you search for -troys ladder rack- in your browser you will find the site that i got the idea off of

How about a shelf that slides out like a kitchen breadboard rather than having all that wasted space at the top for a workspace.

yes that would work good. but in my case i needed a suface i could keep clean and disinfected. i was using the top of my table saw. that is why i put the solid back on it and the top. it was the perfect working hieght for me and i can open a tub and not worry to much if a snake tried to do a fifty yard dash.
maybe the next one
jason

wow,sounds like you made out really good as far as cost on wood,etc....loks very professional,solid,etc...i read fr's post about too much heat tape....i'm not sure-i wanted to ask,it looks like it is actually taped to the back-so there's a panel actually between the tape and the snakes' enclosures,right?if that's the case,i don't think it's too much flexwatt...remember that type of heater-uth,flexwatt,etc-any that mounts to some surface-is conductive heat,i.e. it's heat operates through some medium(glass/plastic bottom of an aquarium or shoebox,etc.);but it is not really meant to operate efectively/efficiently through air,as the heat will just disperse/dissipate too quickly....it heats only what it touches,directly or indirectly...but if you do in fact have that much flexwatt on the backside as it appears in your pic,you may get the right temp on the warm side of the enclosures-but i would be curious to see if you will get a good temp. gradient like that...bottom line,you'll definitely use less electricity,and get more precise heating results(better temp gradient),if you go with thinner tape strips,on the same side of the back wall as the snakes' enclosures...am i seeing the pic right?

it is an open back. the tubs are pushed up to the tape.the lip of the tub touches it. the tape is held on with tumb tacks and is now taped together using foil tape.i was running the wire when my son took the pic.it is plugged into a thermostat at this time. i tested it out on a smaller rack for about 6 weeks and logged the temps. they fell into line with standard temps for the snakes that i keep. what i have been doing is feeding the snakes and pushing the tub to the tape. they will usualy go to the back of the tub.then when they move away from the heat i pull the tub about 2-3 inches from the heat tape. if i see one at the back of the tib i push it closer to the heat tape. it is a system that i like. it seems to keep me in tune with what is going on in the snakes world. also when one in in the blue i flip the tub around and let the water dish get closer to the tape. this gives them some higher humidity.when they shed i flip it back the other way.i think the concern with the others was not the tape but the amount.the tape is 11" wide.i cut it to 36" one strip covers two shelves.there are 4 tubs on each shelf.they thought that if the thermostat failed then all of that tape would bake the snakes. it would i'm sure of it. i will change it out soon and go with the 3" tape and design a g.f.i. with a thermostat.that would give me the safty net needed to cut the power off in case of thermostat failure. an electrican i know said it can be done. so i will take some notes and let you know if it works. i'll make it safe. i will need to run a new circut to the snake room and all the thermostats will hook into the recepticals(all gfi) then those recepticals will be hooked to an in line thermostat that will cut the power if the temps reach above 87-90*.then the worst case would be to find out why and correct it.well we'll see...
thanks for your reply
jason