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How did I ever live without a rack system, Herpstat, and tempgun?
I've kept reptiles on and off for decades, (worked in a zoo & owned a couple of pet stores too), have seen and used every type of cage, tub, tank, and even old showcases as caging for my herps. Recently I expanded and purchased a small herd of BP's, and with them came a Vision rack system, (V-70/11), a Herpstat Pro and a temp gun. I had several rheostats I was using for controlling various types of UTH's and ceramic heaters, (you know, the "old school" way), and several refrigeration analog probe thermometers which all required quite a lot of tweaking and constant adjustment to maintain proper enclosure conditions...and until I got this rack system and thermostat I was perfectly comfortable using those tools.
After getting the Vision rack and figuring out how it went together, (cleaning and sanitizing it completely with F10 as I went), I still was a little skeptical about it. But, now that I have everything firing on all cylinders I just love this thing!! It was missing a couple of tubs, but I noticed that the same rack will take different sizes of tubs I decided to customize it by ordering four V-35 tubs, (already had some baby tubs as well as eight V-70's). I cut some support tubes to get the baby tubs on the top row, put two rows of four V-35's below that, then 8 rows of V-70 tubs below that. My collection is small, 5 BP's and 5 Leos, (and counting), but the fact that I have all those animals in one unit, controlled by a device which controls up to four separate zones independently is just a wonderful thing. I have room for more snakes and Leos alike should I obtain more, (like I won't ...duhh!). Of course I'm still tweaking placement of the heat rope and temp probes for max efficiency, but having the temp gun to spot-check areas within the tubs really helps with that. I'm finally getting it set up in a way that works for me and the animals alike, and really wonder how I ever lived without these husbandry "tools". Also, when I had the animals in various tanks & cages I was using both UTH's and overhead ceramic heat emitters to maintain proper temps, which altogether were sucking up 500+ watts of power to operate. Now I'm running the entire set up at an average of about 100 watts, (usually less), so over time this efficient unit will pay for itself in energy savings...cool!!
Yes, I know there are many types of racks out there, and I don't want to start a discussion of the pros & cons of those different systems, or get a "this system is best" argument going. I just was a bit giddy once I got this unit going and started realizing it's benefits, and I just wanted to show it off! Since I live in a one bedroom apartment this is just what I needed, and I was able to get rid of all those bulky glass tanks and actually have room for furniture again! See photos below:

0.1 2007 Normal
1.0 2008 Cinnamon
1.0 2010 Normal
0.1 2011 High White Reduced Pattern Spider
0.1 2012 Normal
1.0 2013 Normal
1.0 2013 Cinnamon
0.1 2013 Cinnamon
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