Thoughts on our rack?

So I for now have gone 'homemade' on my rack for my four ball pythons. Husbandry seems to be good. 71 degrees on the cold side (having trouble getting that above room temp, 78 ambient on the warm but everyones hot spot is EXACTLY 90 degrees according to the temp gun. Individual UTH pads with thermostats.

Everyone has their own hides and water bowls, also, I have a tarp to cover the rack at night time so the lights in the room don't bother them.

I plan to upgrade my rack around my birthday (fingers crossed) but for now this is what I have. Housing all 4 of my ball pythons and so far 3 of those 4 have eaten and used the bathroom in this enclosure.

Thoughts or advice? (Also, if it wasnt obvious, all of the tubs lock closed, no escapes here. http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...a5e17ed83c.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...9b980d3e7c.jpg

71 degrees seems a little low, but other than that it looks good. I have a "homemade" rack too. Just a storage rack with adjustable shelves and some heat tape, but it works.

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Originally Posted by the_rotten1

71 degrees seems a little low, but other than that it looks good. I have a "homemade" rack too. Just a storage rack with adjustable shelves and some heat tape, but it works.

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I'm having trouble with ideas on how to raise that cold side because the house is a steady 68 and I'm not in charge of that one.

Raising the temp of the hot spot should raise the ambient temperatures too. I had to up my hot spot up to 95 degrees to get an ambient temp of 80. That probably sounds a little high to you, but they've been doing fine. Nobody is burned, they all enjoy staying in their hot spots, and I've noticed that they digest their food better (poop more often) than they did when the temp was lower.

My home is at 75 though, so it's a little easier for me. If you want you could try insulating the rack more. I saw a guy on here not long ago who had problems keeping temps up, so he put some metallic looking insulation on each shelf. Wish I could remember the name of the stuff. I was thinking of doing the same thing, but with aluminum foil, because I'm on a budget. Might help spread the heat some.

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Originally Posted by the_rotten1

Raising the temp of the hot spot should raise the ambient temperatures too. I had to up my hot spot up to 95 degrees to get an ambient temp of 80. That probably sounds a little high to you, but they've been doing fine. Nobody is burned, they all enjoy staying in their hot spots, and I've noticed that they digest their food better (poop more often) than they did when the temp was lower.

My home is at 75 though, so it's a little easier for me. If you want you could try insulating the rack more. I saw a guy on here not long ago who had problems keeping temps up, so he put some metallic looking insulation on each shelf. Wish I could remember the name of the stuff. I was thinking of doing the same thing, but with aluminum foil, because I'm on a budget. Might help spread the heat some.

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I will for sure be looking into that then. Especially if I can just insulate the rack to help spread some heat to the cold side.

To boost the temps on the cool side you can either

Heat that room up with a oil filled heater and an external reliable thermostat

or

Have a second UTH, this one on the cool side with a reliable T-stat set to hachieve 75/76 degrees.

Is there a reason you went with wire shelving? I haven't seen that before. Seems like that would make it easier to lose heat.

For heating, I do what Deb suggested which is have 2 heat pads - one warm and one cool. I also have a hide on each side.

Last thing is with regards to the tops locking. Those look like the kind that only latch on the ends. The center of the long edge can be pushed up easily depending on the length of the tub.

I like the tarp.


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Originally Posted by BPGator

Is there a reason you went with wire shelving? I haven't seen that before. Seems like that would make it easier to lose heat.

For heating, I do what Deb suggested which is have 2 heat pads - one warm and one cool. I also have a hide on each side.

Last thing is with regards to the tops locking. Those look like the kind that only latch on the ends. The center of the long edge can be pushed up easily depending on the length of the tub.

I like the tarp.


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Because the shelf pieces were out of stock and I'm waiting for them to come in. I can see your point though. My hot spots have been fine but those shelves combined with insulation will hopefully help my ambient temps.

Maybe line the sides and back with some insulated EPS foam boards? Should be able to get at a home improvement store, something like this:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/SilveRboa...A&gclsrc=aw.ds

An oil filled heater to keep the ambient in the room at 70-75 would be ideal though, as Deborah mentioned.

Ok so I think you could do a few things. The problem with the wire rack is the heat escapes in all directions, what you want is for it to be directed towards the tub and snake. Get some "Reflectix" insulation and place it under the tub with the heat tape/UTH on top of the "reflectix". This will make sure all your heat is going up into the tub and not radiating in all directions. Next, it looks like you have a thermostat for every tub? As long as the heat tape or UTH is the same wattage you can plug in multiple UTH or heat tape strips to the same thermostat. what might work for you is run two thermostats....one connecting all the warm sides, and the other regulating all the cool sides. You can daisy-chain the four warm to one stat and the cool four to the cool stat.

Hope this makes sense and helps.

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Originally Posted by JHPythons

Ok so I think you could do a few things. The problem with the wire rack is the heat escapes in all directions, what you want is for it to be directed towards the tub and snake. Get some "Reflectix" insulation and place it under the tub with the heat tape/UTH on top of the "reflectix". This will make sure all your heat is going up into the tub and not radiating in all directions. Next, it looks like you have a thermostat for every tub? As long as the heat tape or UTH is the same wattage you can plug in multiple UTH or heat tape strips to the same thermostat. what might work for you is run two thermostats....one connecting all the warm sides, and the other regulating all the cool sides. You can daisy-chain the four warm to one stat and the cool four to the cool stat.

Hope this makes sense and helps.

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Would I just get a 2 prong splittle to run the multiple heat pads at once? And I'll for sure invest in some sort of insulation to try to get those ambient temps us. And 2 are the same but 2 are different from the rest of the UTH sources. They're of slightly different sizes. Thats the main reason I got the seperate thermostats.

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Originally Posted by cheosamad

Would I just get a 2 prong splittle to run the multiple heat pads at once? And I'll for sure invest in some sort of insulation to try to get those ambient temps us. And 2 are the same but 2 are different from the rest of the UTH sources. They're of slightly different sizes. Thats the main reason I got the seperate thermostats.

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As long as you are plugging in two of the same size or wattage, yes you can get a plug splitter of some sort and it will work just fine. If ones big and one is small...it prob wont work the same as it takes more power to heat the bigger one than the smaller one. You would have the small one really hot while the larger on is just coming up to temp...and thats no good.

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Originally Posted by JHPythons

As long as you are plugging in two of the same size or wattage, yes you can get a plug splitter of some sort and it will work just fine. If ones big and one is small...it prob wont work the same as it takes more power to heat the bigger one than the smaller one. You would have the small one really hot while the larger on is just coming up to temp...and thats no good.

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Yeah thats about what I figured. I'm planning on upgrading to a herpstat 2 and when I do that I'll be switching my UTH to proper flexwatt heat tape.


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