Reptile & Amphibian Forums

so i've got enough snakes now that a rack is in order. i have both corn snakes and ball pythons, but this rack is going to be mainly for some baby/yearling ball pythons if not, soley for balls.

the snakes are barely a year old and i just want something to house them in for about a year; and in that time i'll have built adult an adult sized rack for balls and this one will be inherited for corns or baby balls.

so i'm using 12qt sterilite bins that are 16" D x 12 W x 6" H
i'm going to have it be 3 bins wide x 4 bins high for a total of 12 bins.
the total dimensions of the rack will be 36" W x 18" D x 24" H
the first 6 will be dedicated to housing the balls, and the way this is set up the other two shelves can handle: 3-12qt bins, 1-32qt and 1-12qt, or 1 40qt bin so it can grow with the snakes or if i obtain larger snakes. the goal is to be pretty versatile.

i planned on just running 3" or 4" (haven't decided...help?) heat tape accross the underneath of the sweater boxes - so i'll have four 3 foot strips of flex watt running from left the right of the rack towards the back end. the rack is going to have a plywood back, sides, and top, but the right side will have a 3 or 4" (depending on size of heat tape) gap towards the back of the rack. so if the left side is 18", then the right side will be 14" with both front ends being flush. this way, i'll only have 4 flexwatt clip/connections instead of 12, plus the snakes will have back belly heat instead of a foot of belly heat running through the center.
depending on what people say on the matter, i will either be using a dimmer, inexpensive herp thermostat..or even house thermostat (don't know if that will work yet). i've been told that with corns even a dimmer would be fine, just find the point where you like the temp and just tape the dimmer in place.

apart from that, i am still having a dilemma with wiring the flexwatt. my main concerns are: will 3-4" wide be enough to heat the cage? once i wire a connection with flex watt, will i be able to pry it open and switch the 3" on one shelf with a 12" (if i ever use a 40qt bin it'll be a lot bigger area), or are all connections you make with that stuff permanent? or what if i just wire the two rows of flexwatt i need for now, can i wire the other two later?

if anyone has questions/comments/concerns i'd really appreciate it cause this is my first rack. and the design makes sense in my head, but if it's too confusing i can scan the blueprints i drew for it.

Sterilite makes a few different versions of the 12 qt. box.

I would strongly encourage you to find the 12 qt. box that matched the height of their 41 qt. box.

Then you could build a rack where each level could hold one of the three options:

1) One 41 qt. box. (widthwise)

2) One 28 qt. box (widthwise) plus on 12 qt. box

3) Three 12 qt. boxes.

Even if you rarely use all of these options, I'm guessing you'll be glad you went this way.

TWH on this forum has built a few of these.
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Current snakes:

0.0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java locale (green)

2.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Seleyar locale (all black)

i do have it designed to be built that way; the 12qt, 32qt and 40qt are all exactly 6" high.

Sorry, I totally overlooked that.

Have not been wearing my glasses while on the computer recently...

Others here can chime in about the heat.
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Current snakes:

0.0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java locale (green)

2.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Seleyar locale (all black)

Sounds like you have a prety solid plan the only thing I will add is basic. Make sure you measure before building, often tubs are marked 6" and are actually a hair off. I have no doubt you have already done so but if you havn't you may want and check that.

I may be wrong but are cornsnakes escape artists?

>>i planned on just running 3" or 4" (haven't decided...help?)

I ran a single strip 18" long of the 3" wide stuff on my old 41qt rack and it heated it really well. I will mention that the rack was solid walled and in a heated room but it did the job wonderfully. I now use a single pane of 11" tape per 41qt tub. Reasoning I wanted a greater area of belly heat, this new pane runs at no where near max seating on my dimmer set up.

So the anwser is either will work but depending on the reptile room temp. Yopu may want more wattage per foot, really the only difference between the two.

>"so i'll have four 3 foot strips of flex watt running from left the right of the rack towards the back end.

Per row or total?

>"so if the left side is 18", then the right side will be 14" with both front ends being flush.

This doesn't make sense to me, why not run it parallel with the front of the tub so many inches deep.

>"this way, i'll only have 4 flexwatt clip/connections instead of 12, plus the snakes will have back belly heat instead of a foot of belly heat running through the center.

How many strips of flexwatt are you running per shelf? You know you only need 2 connection per piece of flexwatt.

>>depending on what people say on the matter, i will either be using a dimmer, inexpensive herp thermostat..or even house thermostat (don't know if that will work yet). i've been told that with corns even a dimmer would be fine, just find the point where you like the temp and just tape the dimmer in place.

I use dimmers they work fine for me. However the company that makes flexwatt recommends a proportional thermostat.

>>"once i wire a connection with flex watt, will i be able to pry it open and switch the 3" on one shelf with a 12" (if i ever use a 40qt bin it'll be a lot bigger area), or are all connections you make with that stuff permanent?

Crimp connections are not pernament nor is solder connections if done correctly.

>or what if i just wire the two rows of flexwatt i need for now, can i wire the other two later?

Why not wire them all now and only plug in what is required now.

A picture may help determining what it really is you want the flexwatt to do.

Good Luck
Jeremy
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"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" July 16, 1945 Robert Oppenheimer

1.1 Double Het "Sharp" Snow RTB's -Coming Soon-
0.1 Albino RTB -Coming Soon-
1.1 Hypomelenistic RTB's
0.2 Pastel Hypo RTB's -Coming Soon-
2.0 Double Het Stripe Albino RTB's
0.1 Suriname RTB
0.1 Anerthrystic RTB
1.0 Ball Python
1.1 Rhinoceros Iguana's
1.0 Green Iguana
1.1 Cream Golden Retrieviers
1.0 Pomeriaian
0.3 Catus Terribilis
0.1 Spouse

That helps a lot, but let me clarify some things and try to make some sense out of it:

>"so i'll have four 3 foot strips of flex watt running from left the right of the rack towards the back end.

Per row or total?
>>>>> i meant total, there will be one 3-foot strip per row.

>"so if the left side is 18", then the right side will be 14" with both front ends being flush.

This doesn't make sense to me, why not run it parallel with the front of the tub so many inches deep.
>>>>> my plan was to run it towards the back end running accross the width of the rack...so 3 feet of flexwatt are connected, and the wires exit through the right side of the rack where i have left a 4" gap (that's why the right side is 14" and the left is 18"

>"this way, i'll only have 4 flexwatt clip/connections instead of 12, plus the snakes will have back belly heat instead of a foot of belly heat running through the center.

How many strips of flexwatt are you running per shelf? You know you only need 2 connection per piece of flexwatt.
>>>>> i know that but running flexwatt parallel to the bins will make me have to wire 12 connections instead of just 4, i thought it would save some time and money.

You can use a house thermostat for air temp sensing, not belly heat tape sensing. Also, you can't drive the load (heaters) directly using the home thermostat. You need to run 24 VDC or VAC from a plug-in transformer through the thermostat output contacts to a relay or solid-state relay that powers the heaters. But since you didn't know that, I wouldn't mess with that setup until you have a solid understanding of it.

i'm not sure what you have in mind with heat tape,but i have built several racks with the 41,27 and 12qt sterilite tubs.i run three inch 6 watt heat tape in a routed channel in the shelf (belly heat) about 2.5-3" from the back wall.this will supply all the heat you need in a room kept at 75-78 degrees.hope this helps,have fun!

well during the winter the temp is not going to be in the 75-80 degree range, so would you recommend running 1 foot of 3" flextwatt per tub through the center of the tub instead?

running flexwatt in the middlle of the tub may not give the animal a good way to thermoregulate.by putting the heat source on one end or down one side it let's the snake "tune in" to the temp it's seeking.

in my experience using flexwatt in a cool room doesn't work very well,it's much better to get the room temp close to your target temp and use the flexwatt to tweak the last 5-10 degrees.in my snake room i run constantly a oil filled electric heater or a air conditioner and this works out well.

i have a friend who hatches out about three thousand corns a year who has no flexwatt or thermostats,he just controls the room temps.if i didn't have balls (pythons that is) i would use the same method.have fun!

if it makes any more sense, i was planning on parallel wiring the flexwatt...having them all hooked together with just one plug; that's why i was concerned about being able to uncrimp/clamp flex watt connections in case my needs change...

i assumed they would be wired in series.BTW you may want to have two plugs,if you were only using half the levels you would only plug in the levels your using.

you can "un" connect the clips but that would be messy and not safe IMO.the clips work by punching holes in the flexwatt,taking the clips off would expose hot copper pieces,possibly leading to arching etc.the best way to meet your snakes needs is to NOT add or subtract flexwatt but to adjust room temps in conjunction with the heat tape as mentioned earlier.have fun!