Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just got a 4 tub 32 quart rack with a helix and bottom heat tape.What is the best way to set it up?how big sould the water bowls be? what kind of bedding? how many holes in tubs? The rack is for my ball pythons. Can someone help and if you can send me some pics of setup so i get a picture view. reply or email me at bawreptiles@comcast.com

you can use 16-20 water bowls. i went to target and got med size dog water bowls they are made of glass. for bedding i use aspen bedding from kaytee. make sure it says clearly on the bag aromatic free! you can punch about 7 holes in the tubs. you can get the bedding from any petstore or petsmart or petco. im assuming you have ball pythons over 1200 grams? if you are getting babies the tubs are way to big and they wont as good in them. good luck!

I build my own racks and always include a plastic hide box. For bedding I use newspaper because it's very easy to keep clean, always available, and cheap!

For water bowls go with somthing heavy so they don't tip easily..

~ Mike

Looks cool!

Do you just breed them, or are they also family pets?

Nice Job mike..why the lids on the tubs? and how are you running your heat tape?..thanks

i have built a few of those racks... Some with lids some without... I really don't know why i use lids?

I also heat each rack differently.. On some racks i use one long strip of 3" tape and heat the whole rack at the same temp.. In some racks i use one 11" heat pad on each shelf. all on seperate plugs, so i can unplug unused levels (this rarely happends) or heat some levels up more to accomadate different needs.

i will take some new pix and post them up..

~ Mike

oops... posted the wrong pic on my last post...

Here are a few pics of 2 of our rooms, we have another room and a few more isles in each of the 2 rooms I posted but these are the only pics I have. In the last pic the racks all the way too the left are hand made racks that we made for that room, we are working on putting in a few more rows and moving the freedom breeder rack. As for how we have our cages set up, we drill about 5-10 holes on each side for the less ventilated racks for the larger bins and about 4-6 in the front for the ones with more airflow. In the first pic the black hatchling racks have less airflow and hold humidity very well, but we normally put more holes in that type of cage. We use small animal crocks for water bowls, we work with a local pet shop and just order them in bulck. We use newspaper b/c its easy to clean and change, sometimes with cypress it gets too wet even if you dry it out, but we still do use it from time to time normally during breeding season. Aspen is ok I am allergic to it so i try to aviod it but it does work. For picky feeders they get hides. I try to keep the water bowl size smaller bc our larger breeders always flood their cages. We also keep all of our Helix systems on our bottom racks hotter and our helix that control our top racks cooler. But i dont think that would be an issue if you were running one helix for one rack. Racks are great they conserve space and are much easier to clean. What kind did you end up getting?
Good luck with them
Kim
N.A.R.C

how did you adhere the racks to the ceiling? just curious.

me?? I didnt they are free standing. They are stacked on each other that is how we built them. We actually built the rooms for the reptiles and measured the racks and made the drop cielings accordingly. Once they were in we put a small piece of wood so they can get behind, ontop of the racks (if there was an escaspe). we actually are going to put crown molding around the tops once we are 100% finished to make it look more uniform like a wall unit but we havent gotten a chance to do so yet. If you werent asking me then i apologize for this response..lol..
Kim

Looks good.How long does it take you to clean every drawer?
Kevin
Link

lol... we have a little over 700 balls right now and after this season things are going to be a little crazy, its just me and my fiance and we both work full time so things get a little nuts at times. It normally takes us close to 8 hrs a day and it takes at least 3 days to get through all of them, after awhile you get it down to a science and it becomes routine... Love, sometimes it takes alot of it to get through ..lol..
Thanks Kim
N.A.R.C

I was only kidding. the pics were sideways as i viewed them, putting them on the ceiling. very nice set up.
joe

sorry... lol... Those are some examples of my great computer skills..lol
Kim
N.A.R.C

Great looking rack, what type of wood did you use?
I was just wondering why you wouldn't have made it a lid less rack, it makes dealing with the animals alot easier.

Joe.