AP T8 vs RACK SYSTEM

[Neal]

I also live in Ohio and I can tell you I prefer the AP T-10 or equivalent.

You can raise ball pythons perfectly fine in rack systems from hatchling to adult and polypropylene tubs are amazingly easy to clean, but I do not believe them to be ideal "end of life" enclosures for ball pythons.

My reasoning -

Rack systems are very easy to use in conjunction with heat tape or UTHs, but they are rather poor (as a previous posted mentions) at increasing ambient temperature. This means they work well in a room heated to 77-80 degrees, but (in my experience) poorly in rooms normally kept at lower temperatures. Also, I am of the opinion that ball pythons use the extra space in a 48" enclosure. They are seldom active during the day, but ours are quite active at night, even more so it is nearing feeding time. As with humans, a little exercise is probably good for them, but I have no scientific evidence to support this in ball pythons. As another consideration, our larger ball pythons use the extra large hide boxes often used by ball python owners. These hides do not fit well in CB-70 or equivalent tubs as they are too wide. When you move up to something 48" long x 24" wide, you have a lot more space for two of these hides and water dish without taking up 100% of the usable space.

T-10 and other plastic caging (in my opinion) really shines when used with RHPs or a combination of a RHP and UTH. RHPs, while not as good as heat lamps at raising temperature, are quite a bit better than UTHs. Ours are able to raise the ambient anywhere from 7-10 degrees as well as provide hot spots. That said, you could use an RHP set to a slightly lower temperature in conjunction with a UTH and achieve potentially better results depending on individual circumstances. I personally prefer the T-10s for two reasons: (1) they give you a little more height to work with during cleaning and "snake wrangling" and (2) When using RHPs, if your enclosure is only 12" height, you are rapidly loosing height to work with. Also, I think it is really easier on the snake as it is further away from the heat panel and when swallowing food, many snakes will "rear up" to assist in swallowing. I notice some of mine getting cramped or hitting the ceiling when in shorter tubs and enclosures.

Alternatively, if you are heating the room to appropriate ambient temperatures, a T8 with solely UTH heating is still a little short for my liking, but probably perfectly fine.

I don't think a single person that has an AP cage uses an UTH. UTH and heat tape are two totally different things, not to mention AP enclosures are made to use with heat tape being they have 3 different places to place the probe that was specifically cut to place the probe on T8's. I'm not sure how many other ones have. Heat tape in a rack system, the heat spreads, so it's not a terrible idea. I know countless people that use rack systems and don't have their rooms heated to 77-80.

Now granted, me personally, I don't like racks. You don't really see the animals but if you're getting into breeding or housing a lot of snakes, it's efficiency. When I got back into snakes I did so with the purpose of having them all eventually in PVC enclosures, though some are in Exo Terra right now awaiting orders to come in. I'm going for the display look in my bedroom though.