What to Get? :: Future BP Owner

[cchardwick]

If you are thinking of breeding or getting a few more snakes I'd go with an ARS rack, just one level is about $200, and that includes three tubs, so about $67 per enclosure (not including shipping). It's all set and ready to go, just add substrate and the snake, no hides or lights or heaters needed, except a thermostat. Easy to clean, keeps humidity perfect. I started with glass aquariums and when I got a rack system I had tons of junk that I'll never use again, tanks, under tank heaters, hides, water dishes, etc... The resell value of a rack system is awesome too, in fact I could use a few more levels LOL. I should have started with a rack, it would have saved me tons of headaches. And the trays have water dishes built in, you use use Dixie cups that are disposable or reusable. I usually save all my old cups and wash them out and reuse them every few months. The thing I really like about a rack system is that I have an empty tub in the rack, I clean and setup that tub then just move the snake over to that clean tub and move to the next snake, so I'm not trying to figure out what to do with my snakes on cleaning day.

You can use aspen for substrate but I've had problems with wood chips getting into the mouth of my snakes during feeding and with mold, I now use Reptichip.

I actually just bought an ARS rack to breed my rats, saves me tons of money and time compared to aquariums. I would never go back to traditional tanks or enclosures for any of my snakes or rodents, just way to much work and you end up with a bunch of stuff that doesn't have a very good resell value.

For me I think shipping was about $300 no matter how many levels you get, so the more levels you buy at once the more you get vs. shipping costs. I bought four levels of an ARS-7030 and put it on top of four levels of an ARS-8018

http://www.arscaging.com/ars7030_hybrid.html