Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm building a nice rack system for the babies I'll be expecting over the next few years. Heh heh, it's quite large. Holds 40- 6 quart rubbermaid containers. Yeah, I like to over do everything. It's nearly 50 inches tall, about 33 inches wide, and made so that 4 containers can fit on each of the 10 shelves. Now my major concern is heating. Anyone ever have problems maintaining an even temp in a rack like this when heating from the back? If I heated each level individually, it would mean use about 30 feet of heat tape, splicing on each level since the shelves are dado jointed into the sides. (Dado means male-female style joint, to those who never took carpentry). So I figure it'd probably be best to heat the rack using the widest tape I could find, and just spread it evenly up and down the back. Is this type of heating alright for babies, or do they strictly need under-belly heating?
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-Kris

I've seen people heat from the back on snake racks, but I would think you would have more reliable heat ransfer using something under the containers. Considering the babies would only get ambient temp from the back, it would be very difficult to maintain a gradient in such small containers. I use the same 6qt containers, and I run a strip of 2" flexwatt under one end, perpendicular to the containers. Works pretty well.

It's actually not bad from the back. Especially for those small boxes. I run 2 11" strips down the back of a 24" wide rack and it does well. Your problem will be keeping the bottom warm enough without heating the top shelves too high. I've got a 3ft tall rack with the 2x11" strips and the difference can be as much as 6 degrees. Yours will be that much wider of a variation with the added height. If you could do two sections, one for the bottom and one for the top, with two dimmers or thermostats, you'd probably be better off. That's the principle behind the 3 shelves per dimmer on my newer rack.

Good luck
Herpcam

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Rob Jenkins
http://herpcam.com

n/p
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-Kris