Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all,

I am building a rack from hollow core doors (Thanks for ealier advice chris_harper2), it will be about 53" long x 24" wide x 50" high. It will hold 21 mcb-l reptiletubs conatiners (3 conatiners wide and 7 high) and house honduran milks and grey-bands so I need the hot area to be around 90-92.

My question is what is the best flex watt layout, run a section under the tubs (mounted to the each shelf) or run three strips down the back vertically (mounted to the peg board backing). For either one which size of flex watt would be best ( I am suspecting 3".

I dont have much experience with flex watt heating so and advice is usefull.

Many thanks
Vinny
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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

I'm not the heating expert on this forum so I'll leave that to others. However, it might be helpful to know how warm and/or cool the ambient temperatures are in the room at various times of the year.

Just curious, but why the 53" length? Do you have some sort of space constraint? Seems like a lot of work to cut down an 80" door to 53" unless you can't fit it in your room.

Regardless, keep us posted on the project.

Belly heat is going to be more efficent but back heat can work as well..
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www.MGReptiles.com
Professional Reptile Heating Supplies

Yup, its a space thing. I was wondering if I could find an alternative to using the doors for the shelving part but have not found anything light/strong. I was also considering going with 40" wide that way I could just cut the doors in half (and then using 8 rows).

I may just go with the 40" wide,
Vinny
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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

Just cutting the doors in half might be a good idea - less wasted material. However, it has to work around the dimensions of the boxes you will use.

Another thing to consider is using 18" wide doors and having your large boxes slide in width-wise and your short boxes slide in length-wise. Again, you'd have to check and see that it worked with your boxes.

Sorry, I re-read your post and see you're only planning on using one size of box. The MCB-L is about 24" x 16" so it might make more sense to stick with your 53" width.

Or, instead of cutting the doors in half cut them into 34" lengths so there would only be two boxes per level.