Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A good friend of mine has said he'd take on the offer to build me two snake racks for my ever growing Pine Snake collection. I haven't decided on the tubs, but am thinking of picking up the 18 by 34 inch size, by six inches high. I'd like to use flexwatt to heat the tubs, which will be belly heat style. I'd like to build two of them, single stacked, ten tubs high. What I need to do, is find out what everyone elses experiences are, how they built their racks, what they'd do differently, ect. We're thinking of using thicker plywood. Will greatly appreciate all thoughts, comments, ideas, pictures, websites, faqs on building home made racks... Thanks!!!
Russell Keys

CB 75: Dimensions: 22 3/10"W x 37 3/10"L x 6 4/5"H

$15.00

For high quality, made in the USA tubs, you might consider checking out www.reptiletubs.com

I've bought from them twice with good luck both times.

My 2 cents is that they are large and very active snakes (I have a bullsnake) and need a little more room than most snakes. I probably wouldn't feel real good about keeping them in anything smaller.
Designing and planning a rack system is multifacited. It's a fun and challenging learning experience, one which I'm just embarking upon myself. I was directed to the following website which has a lot of good info to consider, spend a little time checking it out.
http://www.arbreptiles.com
You came to the right place though, there are several knowledgable, patient and helpful people at this forum.
Good luck,
Kirk
-----
1.1 Jungle Carpet Python
1.1 Ball Python
1.1 Corn Snake
0.1 Gray band Kingsnake
0.1 Desert Kingsnake
0.1 Pueblan Milksnake
1.0 Bullsnake
1.0 Rhodesian Ridgeback (Hondo)
0.1 Spouse (WC)
0.0.8 hatchling ball pythons

Hey!
thanks for the info on the tubs! I wasn't really too impressed with the size of the tubs I'd find at Walmart, these bigger tubs will fit the bill perfectly! Thanks! Now I've just got to figure out what to use for the framework, and heating!
Russell

I'm pretty sure that website I refered you too discusses material and has plans as well. Most advise you to buy the tubs first and the build the rack to fit them.
-----
1.1 Jungle Carpet Python
1.1 Ball Python
1.1 Corn Snake
0.1 Gray band Kingsnake
0.1 Desert Kingsnake
0.1 Pueblan Milksnake
1.0 Bullsnake
1.0 Rhodesian Ridgeback (Hondo)
0.1 Spouse (WC)
0.0.8 hatchling ball pythons

didn't catch plans, but I do notice they sell everything else cept the wood to build a rack. Did you use heat tape on yours? Would love to hear how your rack was built and what you'd change if you could, ect. Thanks! I really appreciate the help from experienced people who've been down this road already!
Russell

I just threw mine together in about 3 hours and about $15 worth of plywood. It's just temporary housing for hatchlings until I sell them. After that, I'll probaby keep it around for temporary housing like a quarantine tank or something. I'm still working out the details of how I want to make my more permanant racks, so I'll defer that to some of the more experienced folks around here. Yeah, I used heat tape along the back of each shelf for heat. The back of each tub is warm, the front side, not so warm. Here's a pic of the rack before I put the heat tape.
Later,
Kirk

-----
1.1 Jungle Carpet Python
1.1 Ball Python
1.1 Corn Snake
0.1 Gray band Kingsnake
0.1 Desert Kingsnake
0.1 Pueblan Milksnake
1.0 Bullsnake
1.0 Rhodesian Ridgeback (Hondo)
0.1 Spouse (WC)
0.0.8 hatchling ball pythons

sterilite 41 qt. is the size your looking for,it's $6.33 at wal-mart.

BTW i've built several 10 level racks built around this tub and others.each level opening is 5 3/4" x 35",so the 41 and 27 qt. tubs are sideways and the 12 qt. tub is length ways.in each level you could have: one 41qt. tub OR
one 27 and one 12qt. tubs OR
three 12qt. tubs
your total tubs would be 10,20 or 30 tubs.if you are building for larger animals it's probally better to have the level opening on the end of the tub.have fun!

http://www.arbreptiles.com
Go to the above website, on the right hand margin there are topics to click on such as "building cages 101", designing a herp room from scratch", "building hatchling racks" etc, lots of good ideas there.
-----
1.1 Jungle Carpet Python
1.1 Ball Python
1.1 Corn Snake
0.1 Gray band Kingsnake
0.1 Desert Kingsnake
0.1 Pueblan Milksnake
1.0 Bullsnake
1.0 Rhodesian Ridgeback (Hondo)
0.1 Spouse (WC)
0.0.8 hatchling ball pythons

I agree that Pine Snakes would benefit from as large of a box as you can find. I have kept a lot of bullsnakes which is where my opinion comes from. I have also kept pine snakes but am not as experienced with them.

One thing I'll warn you about up front is to get the box you think you want to use and keep a snake in it for a while. Most of the larger boxes on the market have very thick rims around the top for structural support. Then they also have sloping sides so the boxes can be nested inside of each other for shipping.

What both of these lead to is much less floor area than you would expect based on the listed dimensions of the box. For example, I use the Iris CB-80 tub that is available through Reptiletubs.com (great company, by the way). The listed dimensions of the box are:

31.5" x 17.5"

The actual floor area is:

27.5" x 13.5"

The the box is 4" shorter and 4" narrower than the listed size. This can be a big deal for something like a Pine Snake and I recommend actually seeing what one of your snakes looks like kept in a cage that size.

For the CB-75 that UAWPrez mentioned, the listed dimensions are about:

22.5"W x 37.5"L

If they are anything like the boxes I have, which I suspect they are since they are both Iris Boxes, then the actual floor area will be:

33.5" x 18.5".

That's less area than a 40 gallon breeder, IIRC. That's about as small as I would even consider going for a Pine Snake. They are just too long and active.

Reptiletubs.com carries a tub designed for storing Xmas trees that is pretty large. I think it's 53" x 21" - that might be tough to build into a rack.

Another large box I know of is the one that is supposed to be used in the newest Vision Rack. Someone posted here that it would be like 40" x 27". From the few pictures I have seen it appears the sides don't slope much so it should be a box that provides a lot of floor area. I have no idea if this is a commercially available box or something that Scott from Vision moulded himself.

Either way, you might e-mail him and see if he'll sell you boxes by themselves.

One issue with building racks for larger boxes is that you end up wasting a lot of material compared to the typical sweater box rack.

For example, if I build a rack for the typical 28 qt. sweater box I can cut ten shelves from a single sheet of material.

If I build a rack for the Iris CB-70 box I can only cut five. So I have to use more than twice the material to build a rack for a box that is not even 50% larger.

And that's only one example. It typically gets worse as you go up in box size.

One way around this is to use hollow-core doors, assuming your box is less than 36" long, which is the largest readily available size of HC doors. You can really build these cheap, especially if you look for scratch and dent HC doors.

Here is a HC door rack I built to hold 12 of the CB-80 boxes I mentioned in my previous reply.

What I like about this rack is how cheap it was to build, how sturdy it is, and how it is reasonably light.

The downfalls for your needs are 1) it might not work for a suitable Pine Snake tub and 2) it is more work to build them into a rack that is a single tub wide. Given the size of the box you need these may be significant issues. Even if you build it two tubs wide you may have trouble moving it into your home, through doors, around corners, etc.

But you could still build a rack from HC doors and have it a single tub wide. For more ideas on this, see:

RioBravoReptiles.com

Other sites for building large box racks include Ballpython.ca and ARBReptiles.com - I believe UAWPrez already mentioned that one.