Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is my first attempt at building my own rack. it is made from melamine, the sides had the holes pre drilled. It was a 8' piece that i had them cut in half at home depot. then i used 7 36" wide pieces as the shelves. Just waiting on the flexwatt and thermostat to arrive. Total spent was $250. $50 for the flexwatt and cables and clamps, $100 for thermostat (ranco prewired w/ 6 slot power supply) and $100 for the melamine. NOW...it does still have a slight wobble....any suggestions on how to fix that? BTW it holds 7 42 qt. long tubs.

put ya a lil bracing on the back and that'll do ya.
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Education is Everything.......

Looks good! The bracing in back will also help prevent the bins from pushing out (the wrong way).

We created a ton of our own racks, but in the end we replaced everything with Animal Plastics or Vision racks. The AP economy rack is $180 with heat...although you do need tubs and a thermostat. They are so light weight, don't bow, or warp, and you can easily stack them.

Just a thought for the future
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Thanks,
Amy

My Boids

Nice work. A piece of pegboard nailed to the back will fix that up for you as well as allowing for better heat retention.
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www.strictlyballs.ca

42 qt. long...female in tub is 5' plus and is near 4000 grams.

Definitely put a back on it. That will make it very stable. Also, you will end up wishing you built it so it would not need lids on the tubs.
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John Vandegrift

I though about using no lids, but with talking with other breeders who use melamine they suggested using the lids with a melamine rack. Something with better heating and humidity. I have another rack that I got from boaphile plastics that dont use lids and i like not having to deal with the lids. We will see how my rack does...im getting peg board tomorrow for the back. Will post pics once i get it attached.

looks nice.

We just finished a rack--- we used the lids--- we have so many snakes that come plum out of thier cages to 'get' you --- that we like the lids...

and my rack is wood--- humidity and wood- not the best of friends....

also--- anchor it to the wall--- an L-bracket on the top---
ours has a wobble too--- 3$ L-bracket fixed ours.

beth
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The rescue site: www.freewebs.com/okreptilerescue

Beth, just wondering what type of snakes do you actually have that want to come out and get you ?
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Education is Everything.......

We get a lot of cranky ones.
We have some balls that are fiesty-- when you open the cage-- they are either ready to strike, and once hooked-- are ok-- or once out of the cage-- they're fine-- if you reach in and pick them up-- they'll bite you.

We get balls, milks, kings, and corns seem to be really nasty. All the corns we've ever gotten have been plain PO'd -- almost all of them were bought for a kid-- shoved in a 5 or 10 gallon tank, with a heat lamp and UTH-- and when the kid got bored-- the snake got cranky.
I have seen more crabby corns than I can remember.

what else.....small to med size burms... OH! rosy boas-- and sand boas--- had quite a few of those get pretty fiesty.

None of these things are anything that would impose much of a bite worth bragging about--- but with the corns and such-- they tend to be runners and super fast-- so I try to stay one step ahead of them.

I've only ever had a handfull of snakes not calm down after a while--- several good meals and a few weeks of a little handling-- they understand i'm not going to eat them... (or whatever they are thinking)...

i like tubs with lids--- i hate wasting stuff-- so i figure i'll just use the lids... and wood and water arent the best of friends-- with humidity from a dumped bowl-- after time-- would pose problems to my dinky wood racks....
just my technique...

B
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The rescue site: www.freewebs.com/okreptilerescue

What i did after i put pegboard on the back of my rack was i ran to boards down the back and drilled them in and the sucker is sturdy