Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Posted by: mack1time at Sun Jan 14 02:52:32 2007 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ]

I am planning on building a small drawer type rack setup. I just need some basic answers on heat tape before I get to far in the design process.

Do i run the heat tape in 1 single line like in drawing 1 so i could just slide it in through the sides and weave through the stages so I could have a backing to my rack?

or does it have to be like drawing #2 with 3 seperate circuits?
or does # 1 have to complete a circuit sorry for the cheap drawings but basically I am needing to find out how heat tape must be wired?

Ps pic #1 is weaved on the sides with a backing
pic # 2 is seperate feeds throug back therfore no backing

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2.2 Columbian common boas (Zeus, Athena, Aphodite, Hades)
1.1 Corn snakes (Appolo, Boreas)
0.1 King snake tri striped cal morph (Helios)

How many boxes do you plan to put on each shelf?

If you only plan on having one box per shelf then you can run the tape either front to back or side to side.

If you plan on having 2 or more boxes per shelf then you will have to run the tape from side to side so that it is under both boxes.

You can either run the tape in one long snaking piece, or you can use seperate peices for each shelf. If you use different pieces for each shelf I would recommend wiring each piece to it's own plug, and then pluging them into a powerbar that is plugged into your thermostat. This way you can unplug a shelf if it's not in use.

I plan on using the snaking method on the next hatchling rack I build (hopefully tomorrow). It will be nice since If I ever decide to tear it apart, I will still have 1 solid peice of flexwatt to reuse that I can cut to any size I need instead of 8-13 pieces of 2' flexwatt.

I just built my first hatchling snake rack. I did the simplest thing. I bought a rubbermaid 7 drawer (w/locking lids) craft storage rack. I ran a single piece of flexxwatt (about 2 feet or so)down the back and attached it to a rheostat. I put air holes in each drawer. Bam. Instant snake drawer rack. I let it warm up and checked with my temp gun and no problems. I think it cost me $30.00. I currently have 3 babies in their with room to spare.
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1.0 Green Iguana
1.0 Bearded Dragon
0.1 Midnight Blizard Leopard Gecko
2.4 Corn Snakes (2 Blood Red,1 Granite,1 Butter, 1 Creamsicle,1 Anery)
2.1 Ball Python (2 Normal, 1 Lemon Pastel)

Do you have any pics of your $30 rack? I'm not sure what a "craft rack" is or looks like.
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Everything I know about life I learned from Nintendo!!!