Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am building a rack that will house mostly milks and kings. I am using 23 X 16 inch tubs that will be in the rach lenghtwise.

I am planning to use two - 3 inch/10 watt strips of heat tape as back heat. Will this be sufficient?

Thanks for you help

If I were building a rack or ordering a new one, I would only use belly heat. I'll never run back heat again. At least not in the same room or environment that I currently use. The racks I had that used back heat simply lost too much heat. Not very efficient. I had to place 2 inch rigid insulation on the sides and back to get my temps up, stable, and controllable.
Just my opinion.

Not a great idea in my opinion. Belly heat works much better, and is easier to control. What do you mean the boxes will go lengthwise? Will you have 26 inches from front to back for your heat gradient or 16? Neither will give you a good gradient with back heat, and you will have to use lots of insulation to even get the temps up at all.

I know it seems easier to build with back heat but belly heat is absolutely worth the trouble. It will also lower the electric bill because you only need a little bit of belly heat, as opposed to back heat which pretty much needs to be cranked full blast 24/7.

Also, if you are housing adult kings/milks, especially big ones like hondos, don't you think that those tubs are a little small? Just my .02

Front to back would be 16 inches. Some of the milks will out grow the tubs, but I dont think even a well fed Honduran will outgrow the tub with in two years. At that time I will address a larger enclosure, and I can use this for raise ups.

How warm will the room be?

I actually prefer back heat but you have to take care to do it correctly, essentially building the equivalent of a RHP onto the back of the rack that radiants heat towards the back of a cage. You can also do the same and have the heat radiate down from above, but this takes even more ingenuity and can be near impossible to retrofit into an already built rack.

What you want to avoid is using belly heat for species with high heat requirements in a relatively cool room, especially if the cage is spartan with the basic newspaper and water bowl setup. I doubt you'll face this issue with the milk and kingsnake species you keep.
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Current snakes:

0.0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java locale (green)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Jave local (green)

2.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Seleyar locale (all black)

1.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Celebes locale (Black & Tan)