Hi, Will. Thanks for sharing your design. The only drawback I see to it is that it appears that the underside of the tray doesn't also hold down the tops of the tubs, therefore you'd have to come up with some way of holding the tops down on every level.
I recently purchased the "new" rack system from Vision, which cost $349.00 plus shipping for the 20 tub rack, including heat but not including tubs (visit http://www.visionproducts.us/racks/index_cp_rack.html to see pictures of this rack). This system sits on six casters that make it very easy to move about. Zoo Med heating cable is provided and threaded into grooves under the back of the tub to warm it. While it looks similar to your set up there are six steel rods running verticaly through the plastic tubes, which are actually used as spacers. You thread the rods through the floor platform first, drop the first set of spacers down the rods, then the next platform is slid down the rods to rest ontop of the spacers; then you slide down the next set of spacers, place the next floor piece in place and repeat until finished. Assembly was a piece of cake.
The floor pieces come with holes pre-drilled for providing ventilation. They go smooth side down, groove side up. I thought this was a great idea, but unfortunately,there was a 3/16th" gap between the ceiling and my 15 quart Sterlite tubs. I was moving 6 month old babies out of their shoe box containers and into the next size up and was concerned about the size of the gap. Because of this I ended up melting holes in the sides of my tubs for ventilation and put the tops on the tubs to resolved the gap issue. Because the tops are more less flush with the ceiling there is no possibility of my smaller ball pythons lifting the top to squeeze their way out.
Vision was willing to trim my spacers to the length I indicated, but I didn't want to go through the trouble and expense of disassembling the unit, packing up the spacers, shipping them back and then waiting for them to return so I could reassemble it. I would have liked to have used the tubs without the tops in order to take advantage of the pre-drilled holes. That's really the only criticism I have and it's pretty minor. Other than that, I'm very, very pleased and I will definately buy another when the time is right.
It's an excellent design, very high quality and you absolutely can't beat the price for this type of system. Scott was a pleasure to work with. The system shipped very quickly. The tubs are easily found at Target.
Another nice feature of this system is that you can adapt it to fit just about any size tub by varying the length of the spacers. You can also change the amount of heat going to each tub by quickly modifying the amount of heat cable coiled around in the back of the floor. Someone put a lot of thought into this one. If you're thinking about buying or building a rack system I'd strongly recommend this product.
Merry Christmas
Python Joe
