Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi. Im building a rack and need some help with size and placement of the flexwatt. The rack will be made of melamine and the tubs are going to be the cb 110 from reptiletubs.com. Would it be better to put the flexwatt on the back or underneath? The rack is going to be housing a ball, a redtail, and a 2 kings for now.

As I see it your main requirement at this time is housing three different species in one rack. To that end each tub will require it's own run of flexwatt. As I see it two ways to accomplish this.

Back heat - you could run three or four inch flexwatt along back and maybe even part of the sides. Imo difficult to accomplish and not the best way.

Belly heat, one panel of eleven inch flexwatt placed in the middle-back of the shelf will fit between the feet of the CB110 tub.

House the warmer animals at the top and the cooler ones on the bottom. Each panel will need it's own control, thermostat or dimmer.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Really complicated. Housing three different species with entirely different temp ranges make the choice difficult. Not knowing the style of rack open or closed makes it complicated. Not knowing the ambient temp of the room in which the rack is placed really complicated.

Knowing these answers priceless....

Dave gave the basics but I will add a few more.

Belly Heat tends to work better in open rack designs.

Back heat finds its niche in a closed rack.

It is possible to control each tub in a rack with a dimmer individually but it gets a bit complicated and expensive wiring 10 dimmers.

It is also possible to wire each individually and wire the rack together as a whole by having two circuits each with their own series of heat tape. The first could be a given series of tape designed to maintain the ambient temp of the lowest heat requirement. IE maintain the temp of the entire rack to 75°F. The other series of heat tape could be wired individually to supplement the main heat and adjust the heat for each tub to the appropriate level.

Either way animals requiring the warmer environment should be placed higher in the rack to take advantage of the notion that warm air rises. It is the most economical..

Cheers
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Jeremy Payne
JB Reptile
Specializing in Boa Morph's

1.0 Snow "Khal"
0.2 Triple Het Moonglow "Khal"
0.1 Orange Tail Hypo Het Leopard
1.1 Double Het "Sharp" Snow
1.0 Ghost
0.1 Possible Super Hypo
0.1 DH Ghost
1.1 "Khal" Albino
1.0 Hypomelenistic
1.3 Pastel Hypo
0.1 Suriname/Columbian cross
0.1 Anerthrystic

You say for now, which I take as meaning this rack may house different species over time. That makes me think you need versatility.

A few years back somebody posted a rack in which flexwatt was all wired to one Tstat but then every two levels or so had a rheostat so zones could be dialed in accordingly. Maybe Bighurt or MarkG will have more ideas about this.

To me this project calls for heat cable and a design that allows you to route the appropriate amount of cable underneath each tub. More work but probably the best choice overall. And simpler than rheostats to create zones.

I'm going to disagree with Rainbowsrus and Bighurt slightly. Years ago I had mixed species in racks and would actually house the species with greater heat requirements in the bottom and the cooler species at the top. This worked for me simply because I could place a clay hide over the hot spot on one of the lower levels and it would slightly heat the shelf above for the cooler species. In other words, the cooler species had no heat tape, only a small amount of residual heat from the thermal mass source below.

However, I won't suggest this is a situation that can be duplicated easily in any given environment. But it might work for you.
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Currently keeping:

6.10 Gonyosoma oxycephalum (Javan, mixed colors)

1.1 Philodryas baroni

1.1 Lampropeltis triangulum multistriata

1.0 Rhodesian Ridgeback

Versatility you say? - these racks (10 high - CB110) combined with a Herpstat PRO allows the user to set four different temp zones. I typically set it up as 1,2 / 3,4,5 / 6,7,8 / 9,10 with the the temp probes on #'s 2, 4, 7 and 9.

Each shelf had it's own 11" panel, I recessed them but afterwards realized the feet on the tub would have allowed me to not recess the panels and still have the required space to allow them to work properly. Each panel has it's own numbered cord.

-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

>>I'm going to disagree with Rainbowsrus and Bighurt slightly. Years ago I had mixed species in racks and would actually house the species with greater heat requirements in the bottom and the cooler species at the top. This worked for me simply because I could place a clay hide over the hot spot on one of the lower levels and it would slightly heat the shelf above for the cooler species. In other words, the cooler species had no heat tape, only a small amount of residual heat from the thermal mass source below.
>>
>>However, I won't suggest this is a situation that can be duplicated easily in any given environment. But it might work for you.

You can disagree with me all you want. The forum is intended for conjecture of different points of view. In my experience in my enviroment the top of my rack tends to be warmer, however slight. Although in truth its only the very botoom rack that recieves the least amount as it doesn't get heated from the radience of the cage below.

Cheers
-----
Jeremy Payne
JB Reptile
Specializing in Boa Morph's

1.0 Snow "Kahl"
0.2 Triple Het Moonglow "Kahl"
0.1 Orange Tail Hypo Het Leopard
1.1 Double Het "Sharp" Snow
1.0 Ghost
0.1 Possible Super Hypo
0.1 DH Ghost
1.1 "Kahl" Albino
1.0 Hypomelenistic
1.3 Pastel Hypo
0.1 Suriname/Columbian cross
0.1 Anerthrystic

Thanks for your opinions. The rack will be closed and Im not sure of the romm temp yet. Im in the middle of making a small reptile room. Ive never used flexwatt before so Im pretty clueless. Could I just put multiple strips underneath depending on which species. If he needs more heat then put more tape. Would that work?

It's not as simple as more tape. While a larger area of tape will warm a larger area of cage, it all needs to be controlled and NOT run at full on. Either a dimmer or a thermostat.

The heated area really depends on the ambient temp of your room and with multiple species with a wide temp range, the room will have to be kept not really warm. In my warm rooms, each of which houses a single species, the heated area can be ~1/4 of the tub. In a cooler room I'd go more towards ~1/2.
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
26.49 BRB
20.21 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Ok. I may actually be able to get multiple thermostats. Is this the best option? I will definately have to make more racks for specific species in the future.

I'm a bit leary about giving out specific advice re. heating for reptiles so I'll leave that to others.

If you're working on a reptile room I'll assume you have a decent sized collection. In that case it is usually most efficient to go with room heat as much as possible and then just use heat tape or heat cable to provide small amounts of supplemental heat. In that case smaller heated areas under tubs is fine.

The caveat here is that you may keep a wide variety of species, including some that need cool night time temperatures or at least will do better with significant night time temperature drops. In this case you either need room temps to drop at night or you need to individually cool certain cages or racks, which is still not easy to do.

Unfortunately there is no formula here as there are too many factors. You're just going to have to experiment and see what works.

The one bit of more specific advice I will give you is a mistake I see a lot and has been discussed a lot here on this forum. That is the situation where keepers put a rack in a somewhat cool room and then use flexwatt underneath tubs with nothing more than newspaper substrate and a plastic water bowl. In these situations the heat tape has to get too hot to get the desired temperature gradiant and dangerous hot spots are created.

So be careful and leave yourself the option of changing things if they don't work.
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Currently keeping:

6.10 Gonyosoma oxycephalum (Javan, mixed colors)

1.1 Philodryas baroni

1.1 Lampropeltis triangulum multistriata

1.0 Rhodesian Ridgeback

What are good temps to maintain for the 3(balls, redtails, kings) as comfortably as possible? This is just until I get more racks.

This is the sort of advice I don't like giving out. I would say provide temps for the species with the warmest requirements and let the others thermoregulate away.
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Currently keeping:

6.10 Gonyosoma oxycephalum (Javan, mixed colors)

1.1 Philodryas baroni

1.1 Lampropeltis triangulum multistriata

1.0 Rhodesian Ridgeback

I actually can seperate the kings. Would it be as difficult to keep just the balls and redtails together.

You could run a vision rack and use 1 t-stat on the animal that requires the most heat.
Those racks have open sides, ventilated tops, and use heat cable, as little or as much as you need.
If you want to keep 3 different critters in 1 rack, and want to run 1 stat, you can prolly get away with it as long as you don't mind tinkering with temp gun and the various amounts of heat cable. Hottest critters get the upper levels.
If you make a closed side rack it will not be as versatile as the temps want to be consistant (Which is perfect for the same critters.).

Just throwing it out there.