white melamine racks help.

[Ladydragon]

Does the bright white interior effect your snakes habits. they usually want a dark, secluded place to hide to feel secure. Anyone with one of these homemade white melamine racks please comment. thanx.

Know, my other question is..could you use a high heat black spray paint to paint the interior black, of course leaving plenty of time to let the paint air out. Or do you think using regular spray paint would be okay as well?

my idea is to use the melamine shelving and spray it black, except for the area where the flexwatt would go. I would mask it off with blue painters tape before spraying so that the flextwatt would never touch a sprayed area. then once I'm ready to put the flexwatt on the paint should be dry and aired out enough. think this is a good idea? any comments, suggestions, ideas, etc. is greatly appreciated. thanx.

[llovelace]

I have white melamine and mine seem to be doing fine with it, You may want to see if you can order it in black.

[mxrider42]

I have white melamine, white plastic, and black plastic racks. I have never seen a problem using the white compared to the black. You can special order black from cabinet shops, but you will pay more for it.
Trey

[Ladydragon]

the home depot by me has too many doo-doo heads to get things right.. I'd feel really leary to special order something. Okay, so it being white doesn't seem to bother them. Do you have a hide in their tubs with them.. or just in the tub like that? what about the idea of spraying it black? would it be adviseable?

[OuijaBoid]

I wouldnt personally use spray paint on melamine, for Im sure it would stick initially, but over time I think it would come off...My rack is 41qt tubs, and made of melamine pieces and right now Im not using hides....

[Clear]

Paint will not stick to it, you would have to sand it to get it to stick.

[Ladydragon]

oh okay... well I'll see how they do without hides and take it from there. thanx for the input everyone.

[frankykeno]

Doris I have both white and black racks. I've moved the same snake from one rack to the other and seen absolutely no difference in their activities (once they settled in of course). We only offer hides to a select few especially shy BP's in the racks as the rack tends to act as one large hide. Remember with a deep rack with three sides enclosed, it really doesn't matter that the material is white...it's dark in the back of the tub anyways because light can't penetrate the melamine regardless of it's color. The only light coming in is from the front of the tub and that's just generally a nice soft ambient light of the snake room.

[Wh00h0069]

I have eight ball pythons that have been trouble eaters since moving them from 32 qt tub rack systems into a freedom breeder style 41 qt rack system. Most have not eaten in three or four months. I decided it was time to move them into smaller tubs. I built a white melamine rack that holds eleven 28 qt tubs, from the plans that pwilliams58 had on this site. I would like to add that I did install a back piece to the rack, which I beleive makes the snakes feel more secure. I put the eight snakes in the new rack. I waited five days, and offered each a live rat. Forty-five minutes later, there were only three rats left. I am very happy with the new rack. I expect the three that did not take the prey to start eating again within the next few weeks. This leads me to beleive that the ball pythons do not care what color the rack is.

Hope this helps.

[Ladydragon]

thanx Eddie. Yeah, this does help me. I was worried that it being so bright would affect the snakes, but like you said, they don't care as long as their physical needs are met. works for me.