New DIY Rack, Mixed Success

[Prognathodon]

A few weeks ago I was considering our snakes, which animals were growing or at adult size, enclosures we have, enclosures we'd need, and who's in what enclosures now vs. long-term. Our four BPs (all female) were all in divided T8s, but being BPs, weren't usually seen out and about. One of the four has been a fussy eater since we got her, the other three have slowed way down, as they're at the wall. I decided that since we don't typically see the girls out anyway, we might as well make this stack of glass enclosures into a rack, and shuffle the snakes in glass into the T8s or other similar enclosures we have:


The shelving is Ikea Ivar, nominal 33" wide, 20" deep. Space between the uprights is 31.5". None of the Vision tubs were a good fit, nor were Rubbermaid, and I dislike Sterilite tubs for reasons that probably don't apply to a snake rack. I picked up four tubs at Container Store, but returned them as they were 14" tall, and I doubted their sturdiness.

Instead, I got eight 7" deep bus tubs from webstaurantstore.com, nominally 15" x 20", for about $4 each. Polypropylene, food safe, available in white, grey, or black (also possibly dark brown), and should be good and sturdy. Then we went to the hardware store to find a way to make tunnels between pairs of tubs. We looked at various PVC connectors and fittings, and then found connectors for flexible corrugated irrigation/drainage pipe. Got 4" diameter connectors, and an appropriate hole saw (chose the hole saw with the connectors in-hand, no guessing at material thickness and inner vs. outer diameter nominal sizing!)

I bought four more Ivar shelves so that we could wire them up for heat without breaking down the existing unit and enclosures, and so that we could double-up shelves as necessary to get the spacing right. Got home one night last week to find my husband had routed out a channel in one shelf for the thermostat probe, had drilled the tubs, and was in the process of wiring heat tape (in series) and trimming tubs - the tubs were surprisingly fibrous, so the holes had to be cleaned up.

Pictures of the stack of prepped tubs and shelves (with Pippin the husky-mix),



Saturday morning we cleaned the extra stuff off the shelf unit, removed shelves, moved the glass enclosures, and started putting the new shelves back on. We determined that we would need to double-up shelves, due to shelf thickness, tub height, and shelf-support spacing. The heat tape shelves are just sitting on top of the pinned shelves.

Tanami the Woma python supervising:



Unfortunately, although middle-of-the-room experiments with stacking the tubs and shelves showed that the tubs would be completely covered, we forgot about the handles sticking out and running into the wall. So there was a little bit of opening sticking out front of the shelf edge. And we realized before putting the girls in we'd need a way to lock the tubs to keep a determined BP from sliding it out. Husband ran to Menard's for clamps, while I went the other direction for bedding.

Smaug (normal BP) demonstrating the use of tunnels, and coming back over the top. All the girls figured out the tunnels almost immediately.


The bar clamps he got work, but needed more stuff cleared off the adjacent shelves than we were hoping would be necessary.

And then we started seeing Morimi's snoot appearing in the opening. A few minutes later, it was a periscoping Morimi. Headdesk, headdesk. Initial fix was to put linoleum floor tiles between each pair of shelves, to reduce the opening size. Husband had to be elsewhere overnight, which meant we didn't have time for a better fix, so I stuffed the openings with snake bags (and a pair of socks) before going to bed. I hadn't seen any more snake-snoots, but I didn't trust the girls at that point.

Yesterday morning arrived, and one of the girls had pulled some of the stuffing into her tub, but everybody was still contained. Another trip to Menard's for quarter-round trim and finishing nails, then back home to cut, mark, pre-drill, pull the linoleum tiles out, and attach the trim. Voila, the finished rack:



Ended up being more expensive by the cost of the clamps than I was hoping for (the quarter-round trim and nails weren't enough to fuss over), but not quite as simple/easy as I'd hoped. Overall cheaper than a whole new rack, and it fits the space, which was the biggest constraint on this project.

The bottom snake-occupied shelf now is a little lower than previously, leaving spaces for two 10" tall enclosures that are currently in the bedroom - one of the occupants just went blue, so moving can wait until he's finished shedding and/or outgrows the enclosure he's in.

And then there was cleaning up the spilled aspen . . . so much spilled aspen . . . always with the spilled aspen! Also wiping out the old enclosures before sending them off to storage, or just plain getting rid of them.

This brings us down to only one snake left in a glass enclosure, and he seems to be doing fine (sand boa, and no problems with sheds) and its a reasonable size for him for life, so I probably won't worry about replacing it. But I've got a couple snakes growing up, which may end up in the currently-retired glass enclosures temporarily as they grow out.


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