I want to use my tank

I have a 40 breeder sitting around with nothing in it and my fiancee and I are going to start breeding rats pretty soon. The dimensions are 36" x 18" x 16". So how many separate rat parts could I have in it? 3-12"x18"x16"? Would that be enough/too much for it? Issues I may run into? I assume if I could pull off the 3 sections I could always do 1 for the guys, 1 for the girls, and 1 for the childrens.

You can use the whole 40 gallons for breeding purposes housing 1.2 or 1.3 however good luck with your weekly cleaning ;)

Cleaning such a tank weekly will be a hassle; best way is to go with stand-alone tubs lighter easier to clean.

Section it off will not really work unless you want to house one rat per section.

I had intentionally planned on getting tubs and using them but I figured I would throw that out for an idea. Oh well, guess I have an empty tank to fill...:oops:;):):D

I used to have an empty 40 gallons tank too and I finally put something in it this weekend and it works perfectly ;)

Low maintenance natural setup and my cresties are happy (just had to wait for them to be full grown before moving in)

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...oEnclosure.jpg

There are many things you can house in such a setup, rats would just make it such a hassle on cleaning day that why I don't think it's a good idea, cleaning a big tank weekly to remove the smell of urine would not be fun.

I used to use a 55 gallon for several breedings, its not the easiest thing to clean but they are fairly easy to stand on a side and scoop and clean, so dont completely let everyone discourage you, but definately wouldnt try to divide it or it could end up much more of a hassle than its worth.

Deborah, that setup looks AWESOME!

I was thinking of using aspen as bedding since it is cheap and we can get a REALLY good deal on it at E.Bay because my fiancee is really good friends with them. I have a shop vac that I could use to suck all the old aspen out of. I'm not exactly sure of what I will do yet because I will have an empty shelving unit at our new house that would hold multiple 10 gallon tanks since I have also seen that used.

I use a large tank for my rats. I added a topper to make more room. Right now we have have 4 female, 2 2 week olds,2 4 day olds, 10 newborns and a 4-5 week old girl who the snake didn't want at the time. I will be keeping only 8 but housing my male seperate and 2 female for sure won't be bred as they had fertility issues. I use a dust pan to clean out the shavings and add news paper for bedding. I use paper towels and soap to clean it.

i keep mine in glass tanks and never have a problem the one thing that works for me is to always have one extra tank all set up and ready to go when cleaning time comes

rebecca, how did you add a topper? I use 10 gallon tanks as well as my big tub setup, anything bigger would be a pain to me, but that's just me.

Deborah, I absolutely love your setup!

My lid is made with wood and pretty heavy metal screen( not as nice looking but has worked w/o runaways or chew holes). An extra large wire hamster cage is placed on top with zipties and a square was cut so that they can hop up to the top. I have yet to have any issues and never even had any issues with the set up. 10g tanks wouldn't allow for family interaction with the adult rats as my kids love them and my DD always holds them(the not pregnant or nursing ones). They never fights with each other and leave each other alone when pregnant as they can choose differant areas. I clean then 2x a week and since it's only one tank no issues. My mice we now have living in a ovo maze now that's going to be a pain to cleam but it keeps young minds thrilled,mice seem happy to beable to have lots of things to do and the smell in the cage stays in as it's enclosed LOL! I'll take pictures tonight when the kids are in bed.