Your house set up's....

[lillyorchid]

I know a few people have told me that they house their BP's in clear storage containers that you can get at Walmart/Target. If you have your BP housed in that kind of set up, how has it worked out for you? Good, bad, would you recommend it?

Also to everyone.... please if you can, post a picture of your snakes house set up.

[rabernet]

It's worked out even better than I had hoped for. Three new "kids" arrived the beginning of February, two have had perfect sock sheds - one did need a soak to assist shedding, but conditions were identical - so I attribute hers to getting settled and suspect that her next shed will be perfect as well. (And to me, perfect is a complete - unassisted shed - not necessarily a one piece shed).

This is pre-snakes as I was setting up tubs, but illustrates where they are located in the bedroom on the computer desk shelving:



This is pre-snakes, before hooking up the flexwatt and the thermostat:



This, obviously is with snake (Lady Godiva modeling the tub set-up). They are now all on aspen, because they were driving me looney sliding the hides all over the newspaper:



In a nut-shell - Love it, love it, love it! Will never go back to glass viv (not bashing glass viv for those who keep them - just for ME, tubs are IT!!!)

[lillyorchid]

Sounds good! One question though.... how do you heat their tubs? I know heat rocks are a 100% NO NO!!! Do you just use a UTH? A heat lamp? I'm sure I'm wrong by many miles, but couldn't that heat up and melt the plastic?

[rabernet]

Each tub has a 1 foot strip of 11" wired flexwatt controlled by a Ranco thermostat. The thermostat controls how hot the flexwatt gets. No danger of melting the tubs.


The UTH is the only heat source I use.

[lillyorchid]

Neat! I just goggled flexwatt, and found some sites on it and how to make one. How much money does it roughly cost to make one?

[rabernet]

I paid about $9 per piece already wired. Matt at MGReptiles.com

[snakebitten69]

It's worked out even better than I had hoped for. Three new "kids" arrived the beginning of February, two have had perfect sock sheds - one did need a soak to assist shedding, but conditions were identical - so I attribute hers to getting settled and suspect that her next shed will be perfect as well. (And to me, perfect is a complete - unassisted shed - not necessarily a one piece shed).

This is pre-snakes as I was setting up tubs, but illustrates where they are located in the bedroom on the computer desk shelving:



This is pre-snakes, before hooking up the flexwatt and the thermostat:



This, obviously is with snake (Lady Godiva modeling the tub set-up). They are now all on aspen, because they were driving me looney sliding the hides all over the newspaper:



In a nut-shell - Love it, love it, love it! Will never go back to glass viv (not bashing glass viv for those who keep them - just for ME, tubs are IT!!!)

very nice setup! i am starting to think this is the only way to go!
my encloser are made of wood. that makes it really hard to clean!

[ssscales]

I currently keep my ten female BP's in 11qt Sterilite tubs, aspen bedding, simple hide and a water bowl. The tubs are housed in a Melamine rack with 3" Flexwatt tape and a Helix thermostat set at 98F which reflects a 90-92F hot spot in the tubs.

These girls currently weigh between 250g - 375g and are eating a 25-30g rat pup every 7 days like clock work. I figure I'll bump them up to weaned rats as they reach 500g and at that time I'll move them over to a 27qt sterilite tub with a larger water bowl and 2 larger hides. As they out grow those 27qt tubs, they'll be moved up to Iris CB70's.

[ssscales]

As for the Flexwatt, I use 12" under my cages and 3" for my tubs.

Cost is about $3.50 per foot of the 12" wide and $2.00 per foot of the 3" wide.

Wiring cost is basically the cost per flexwatt $3.50 or $2.00, $1.00 for the electrical cord at Wal-Mart, and you can solder the tips or buy the clips for $1.00, I believe.

Cost would be about $1.00-$2.00 to wire it yourself whether soldering or crimping + the cost of Flexwatt needed per ft. I've never had any failures, melt downs or any problem at all with flexwatt.

Just make sure you have a good thermostat controlling those temps!

[ladywhipple02]

I keep my two adult BPs and my adult boa in this:






These are Iris CB110 boxes measuring 19 7/8" wide X 39" long X 6 1/4" high. They are each heated with a 11X12 piece of flexwatt underneath the back end.