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How much ventilation is normally needed? My guess is the more the better...

I've only started experimenting with one sterilite drawer. Each long side has nine 1/4 inch holes along the top and each short side has 5 of the same size holes.
Is that enough? Or should I double that...or more?

As for the rack itself, I can't imagine much air getting through the open front, so I drilled four 1.5 inch holes on each level (2 on each side).

So, would this be ventilated enough?

As for heat...would normal heat pads be ok? I have a pile of unused undertank heat pads and well...waste not want not...
Would those be fine to use?

the more ventilation the harder it is to keep in heat and humidity.
depending on what species you are keeping and the conditions of the room you will be able to determine how much ventilation you need.
i find it better to start off small because you can always add more holes. additionally if you do not mind the look, you can also cover up holes (with tape or something) if you are having trouble keeping the proper temperature and humidity.

normal heat pads should work fine as long as you use a dimmer or thermostat to set the corret temerature.
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- Jason F.

Setup the cage with heat, substrate, water bowl, then measure the humidity. If fine for the species that will go in there, then good. If not, adjust ventilation by covering holes if needed or adding more holes.

Of course, ambient humidity in the room can change throught the year, so keep that in mind.

It is species dependent. For example, it seems rosy boas do well with lots of ventilation even though in their natural habitat they are in holes in the ground by far most of the time. On the other hand, a rainbow boa might thrive in a cage with little ventilation.

Increasing the size of water bowl and its closer proximity to heat can add humidity if needed. The opposite will decrease humidity.

Right now, I'm planning on using it for African House Snakes, although I might someday pick up some rosy boas...

How much ventilation is normally needed? My guess is the more the better...

I think more is better.

Since this is a rack understand that most of the ventilation will come from the gap you leave between the top of the tub and the shelf above.

Assuming this is a sweater box, you'll have about 10 sq. inches of ventilation just from the gap. That's equal to about 50 of your 1/4" holes so I don't think you need to worry too much about the number of holes.

Unless you built the rack with really tight gaps, which I don't recommend.

So how big of a gap is needed then?
The boxes are about 16.5 inches wide and 22.5 long.

The size of the gap depends on a few factors, but mostly the species and it's size/age being held in the box.

For just about anything that would go in a sweater box like you're using, I'd say 1/8", maybe even 3/16".

I could go on and on about this, but I'll leave you with two things. One, building racks with too tight of a gap is still the #1 regret I hear from first time rack builders. Two is that it's always easier to fill in a gap that is too large vs. making the space between all of the shelves greater.

What species is going in this rack and how tight of a gap did you build?

Its got about 1/8th of an inch.

Right now its for a house snake. Although I might get a rosy or something later...

Right, you already mentioned House Snakes. Sorry about that.

I have kept Lamprophis but hardly consider myself experienced with them. Still, I'm pretty sure an adult will do fine with a 1/8" gap. If you need to you can tighten the gap up a bit

Don't obcess too much over the ventilation thing. You can always add/cover holes if you need to.

For a second I thought I mucked the entire project up

I also put in some large holes (1.5 inches) on the sides of the outside box (not the sterilites) to give a little more of a circulation...do you think those are gonna be a problem?

Nope. In fact I used to build all of my racks with open sides. Primarily to save weight, but also to increase ventilation.

Thanks for all the help!

and/or maybe something else small-ish. KSB or something...

I didn't really have much of a plan for buying anything else just yet. It was more for the space saving capabilities and for the fun of building...