Caging woes...

Alright, here's my situation guys... help me out!

I have at the moment nine snakes. These range from my small guys, a Children's python and a rosy boa, to some more moderate sized colubrids (corns, kings etc), my 3 BP's and finally my biggest-- a 5' male Woma Python who is probably still got a bit of growing to do. Right now I have them in glass cages, with hides and decor. I have these glass cages stacked using a metal rack like you might see in a restaurant. I like that I can light the glass cages easily, but the lights sit on top and interfere with opening the lids, and because the metal rack is close to the top of each lid, it can be a pain in the rear to get into the cages to feed and water.

In the past, I have used Animal Plastics racks and cages. The racks I ordered were tall 66 qt racks, so I could include climbing areas and decor, but their footprint was too damn small. So I sold those. I had the 421 cages, some divided, some not, and because my cages are in my basement, I had them add strip lights. Within a month or two of putting those strip lights in, they were destroyed. The snakes pulled them off the ceiling of the cages and then tore them apart, pulling the plastic covers off, etc. Destruction. So then I was left with these dark black boxes and no light cycle at all, which caused my snakes to go off feed.

I have always been a little wary of racks because I like to be able to see my snakes and as I said, decorate their tanks and light them. I still feel strongly about this for my colubrids, who are all very active. But I finally gave in and bought an Iris CB-70 rack by Reptile Basics for my 3 BP's. I just got it today and am going to be setting it up this weekend.

I still can't decide what I want to do with my other snakes, though. I thought about getting front-opening Exo Terras, but if I do that, I still need a rack, and to have the sq footage size I really want, I would have to get the 36"x18" ET's, which would require a 4' long rack. All of my available spaces are 6' spaces, so it seems a huge wast of space to have a 4' rack for a 3' tank.

So I need some help brainstorming other ideas. Has anyone ever heard of a good cage system that has LED or fluorescent lighting built into it that the snakes cannot destroy? What else could I do? I'd like to keep a few more species, but with my racks the way they are I am basically out of space. I feel like cages would give me more room and flexibility but not sure what route to go after the AP cage lighting failed so spectacularly. I was looking at Boaphile cages. Their lighting looks "sleeker" but I am not sure that it wouldn't have the same issue that I had with the AP cages. If anyone has any thoughts or advice I would love to hear it!!

I need a summary

Home Depot sells 4'x8'x1/2" PVC in the mid-Atlantic region so you may want to design and build your own enclosures to make the best use of the space you have.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

Home Depot sells 4'x8'x1/2" PVC in the mid-Atlantic region so you may want to design and build your own enclosures to make the best use of the space you have.

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That is probably always the ideal, but I am just not "handy" in that way.

I had a local guy build me a couple of 4x2x2 PVC cages. He installed LED lighting stripping. I love the features of remote control and changing colors with a press of a button.

However, don't trust the factory adhesive. Between high humidity and an extremely active/curious/highly professional escape artist Coastal Carpet, she pulled the strip down. Fortunately, it did not stick to her bad enough to remove any scales. But it was a mess getting the substrate off of it.

I reattached the strip with a liberal amount of silicone sealant. That is the ticket! :) But it did take a few days to dry since I purposely applied enough to ooze out the sides of the strip. So I had to relocate Lizzy during that time.

I have a Boa that I rescued in the other cage. She is surprisingly not much of cage climber, probably due to her lack of opportunity in the past. Thus, her LEDs are still intact. But I feel that it will eventually fail.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...6e543274ca.jpg

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Originally Posted by Reinz

I had a local guy build me a couple of 4x2x2 PVC cages. He installed LED lighting stripping. I love the features of remote control and changing colors with a press of a button.

However, don't trust the factory adhesive. Between high humidity and an extremely active/curious/highly professional escape artist Coastal Carpet, she pulled the strip down. Fortunately, it did not stick to her bad enough to remove any scales. But it was a mess getting the substrate off of it.

I reattached the strip with a liberal amount of silicone sealant. That is the ticket! :) But it did take a few days to dry since I purposely applied enough to ooze out the sides of the strip. So I had to relocate Lizzy during that time.

I have a Boa that I rescued in the other cage. She is surprisingly not much of cage climber, probably due to her lack of opportunity in the past. Thus, her LEDs are still intact. But I feel that it will eventually fail.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...6e543274ca.jpg

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You can also use heavy duty Velcro. It works well and if the snake does somehow pull it down, the Velcro wont stick to the snake or the substrate. Plus if you ever need to do cage cleanings, you just pull the lighting down and take it out.

I also went with led I put in my self. I agree the 2 way tape isn't very strong. I also silicone it up there. I got mine at Amazon 25 bucks and 16 feet of lights. http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...6c0da3066b.jpg

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

You can also use heavy duty Velcro. It works well and if the snake does somehow pull it down, the Velcro wont stick to the snake or the substrate. Plus if you ever need to do cage cleanings, you just pull the lighting down and take it out.

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Good idea, however, I would not personally trust the adhesive backing, it's the same or similar to what is on the LED strips.

Back to silicone again.

I use AP cages with the recessed LED light strips. There's no way the snakes can tamper with these.

http://i1319.photobucket.com/albums/...pstvxlqkmm.jpg

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Originally Posted by EL-Ziggy

I use AP cages with the recessed LED light strips. There's no way the snakes can tamper with these.

http://i1319.photobucket.com/albums/...pstvxlqkmm.jpg

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Ziggy, can you show me what you mean by "recessed light strips?" I am assuming you cut the cages to put those in?

AP installed the led strips for $40 but you're right they cut the recess into the top of the enclosure. The only issue I have with them is that you can only get them in red, white or blue through their supplier. Their strips are 8mm wide and all the led strips I could find were 10mm or larger. If I could have found the right size AP would have installed them for me.

I talked to Ali about the lights and it seems they can only mount them 6" from the back of the cage because of their connectors. I wanted them to mount mine behind the front lip of the cage so I could still easily mount an RHP. Couldn't be done so I figure i'll just use the LED set that RBI offers as those mount with a clip and screw setup and can be mounted behind the front lip of the cage so I don't have to stare at a LED bar every time I look in the cage. They are more expensive though as you need the LED light which has plugs that plug into an external ballast which has to bought separate but it can run 2 sets of LEDs.

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Originally Posted by EL-Ziggy

AP installed the led strips for $40 but you're right they cut the recess into the top of the enclosure. The only issue I have with them is that you can only get them in red, white or blue through their supplier. Their strips are 8mm wide and all the led strips I could find were 10mm or larger. If I could have found the right size AP would have installed them for me.

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That's interesting, I had no idea that AP did LED lights. In your photo, it is blue LED lights on the colubrids up top? What is on the snakes below in the full 4' tank?

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Originally Posted by Hypancistrus

That's interesting, I had no idea that AP did LED lights. In your photo, it is blue LED lights on the colubrids up top? What is on the snakes below in the full 4' tank?

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H- I have the red led strips on the (2) bottom tanks that my bull snakes are in. I like the red strips much better and wish I had gotten all red ones.