Quote Originally Posted by snake lab View Post
Wrong attitude. Husbandry first ,snake second. Particle board sucks for racks and humidity. Your overthinking trying to make a fire proof rack. Unless you buy a freedom breeder or another metal rack but your tubs will still melt therefore killing your snakes. My best advise is bot to have a fire. Make sure your setup is perfect, your electrical is right and put a snoke detector over the rack. We can learn alot from the pro exotics fire. From what i heard the thought was that the racks were back to back and cause an issue there. Dont know if this is the cause but thats what i heard. Fires are always in the back of my mind but i am very proactive. Im always checkin connections and making sure all heat tape is clear of anything that can spark a fire even though the tape itself doesnt get hot enough to start a fire. Arcing at the connections is where alot of fires start. I have 4 smoke detectors in each snake room so i can know if i have any smoke. I also have fire extinguishers in both rooms as well just in case. It may sound overkill but its worth it to me.
WHAT?!?! no offense but can you post this again and use spell check? I didn't understand half of it. And what do you mean particle board sucks for racks and humidity?? What specifically sucks about particle board?? First of all, I was under the impression that it has not been done a lot (if ever) before so how would you know that information? Also just out of curiosity, how/why would the material of the rack itself affect humidity? I was planning on relying on substrate, water dish size, and a regular old humidifier near the rack to control humidity. (And monitoring this with a digital hygrometer). And most importantly HOW exactly are my tubs going to melt if I don't buy a freedom breeder rack?! I agree with having my setup perfect and the electrical done correctly but that is a given with any rack right? The smoke detector (and probably fire extinguisher) is also a given. ALSO I'm sorry I'm "overthinking" trying to make a fire proof rack but... well actually no I'm not sorry, I want to make damn sure it's fire proof which is why I want to use the fire retardant in the first place. At this point I am much more concerned with the potential chemicals the product MAY release around my snakes which is why I wrote the head of the company today and am awaiting a full response to all of my questions BEFORE proceeding with my plans.

P.s. your note about husbandry first, snakes later...DUH! If of course you mean acquiring and perfecting the husbandry aspect first before acquiring snakes. BUT if by any chance were suggesting that I need to spend more money on my one rack than any/all snakes that may eventually reside in the rack I'd have to politely disagree.