Rack system: OK to leave a tub empty???

Hi, I'm new here, I recently rescued a 3 year old female ball python who was abused by her past owner. she now lives in a 41 quart tub with holes on the side and top and heat lamps for now (infrared 75 watt, I plan on getting a UTH sometime soon, with a thermostat) I've been keeping the tub at 90 degrees on the hot side and around 73 on the cool side she looks to be very happy hiding in her boxes I use for hides but I had a question;

I plan to own 4 ball pythons in the next 5 years or so, depending on if I have a good paying job. but I'm in between college and thinking of moving to different career right now. I see myself living where I am for maybe 2 more years before moving on to somewhere else. I plan to have all my ball pythons in an animal Plastics rack- I really like how they look and how the flexwatt actually fits into the board itself. It looks very well made for a reasonable price. the future ball pythons I adopt I would like to be at least 3 years old so they don't need smaller tubs. I wish animal plastics made a 2 tub rack, I would've bought it in a heartbeat.

I want to order the four shelf cb70 rack right now, but I'm concerned what would happen if I left the other three shelves empty for possibly years before a snake will live in it.

what would happen? would it be dangerous to do so? I figure it will just heat up the air in those tubs and nothing else would happen, or I could leave the tubs out and it would just heat up the air??? but it's also kind of a waste until I get the snake to put in there.

I'm so torn between planning ahead and saving money, or being practical but emptying my wallet when I'll need it most.

what are your thoughts and opinions?

I would rather buy a tub rack with 4 shelves now while i have the money, and slowly gather the pythons to sit in there than to have to buy a 2 Rack system and then upgrade later on when I could possibly be broke from just moving into a new place.

I have one male 3yo orange ghost BP I might adopt in the next few months if I can purchase this rack. The other 2 pythons would probably come along years later (I really want a leucistic female and a pumpkin piebald male, which requires a lot of moneyyyyy)

Thanks for your input!!

email AP and ask if they'll do a custom 2 shelf rack for you; i've asked for a custom 5-level before and Ali said no problem.

the only problem with having empty tubs is just the wasted energy to heat them. i have empty tubs in one of my racks (5/8 spots are occupied) so if someone makes a mess i can quickly move them to a clean tub. i also have a 41 qt 10-level rack i'm going to need to use soon as my collection keeps growing up; i only have 6 ball pythons. like i mentioned above, i keep spare tubs in my racks for easy cleaning.

i hope this helped. :)

The cost of wasting energy is probably the only "issue", but since they're fairly low power using with heat tape, I can't see it being a real deal-breaker.

They might do custom if you ask, but since you seem set on ending up with 4, I'd go for the 4 now and just not need to buy a 2nd custom size one later.

You can always just use a smaller sterilite bin with straps locking it down as a grow-out tub until they're big/confident enough for the adult tub in the rack.

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You can certainly leave the bins empty, or you could use them for storage of small items like clean water bowls, hides, paper, etc. Also having a spare bin clean and empty tub available is convenient when your snake spreads crap all over the plastic of its current bin.

I would not advise leaving the slot containing the thermostat probe empty with no bin in it, as there will be more air exchange in that particular opening compared to the others, which could cause the openings with bins to run too hot.