Questions about Racks/Tubs

[moonlightgdess]

hey, all. in a few months i will most likely be getting a rack.
i have a few questions, though.

1) i see pictures of racks and it looks like there is no circulation. is it okay to drill air holes into the tubs?

2) are hides necessary for racks? i heard you don't need them, but i want to provide what's best for them.

3) heat tape makes more sense to me than using radiant heat panels. what is the advantage?

4) say you have a rack with three levels and two tubs each level. if all six snakes require the same temperatures, is it safe to plug all of the heat into a power expander, and then plug that into, say, a herpstat 1? or is it better to get a herpstat 6 and connect each one individually?

thanks for any replies!

1. I use Animal Plastics racks (love them) and I drilled holes into all my tubs. The humidity was too high otherwise.
2. I don't use hides in mine, my snakes were never really interested in them. The tubs in my racks are only about 6" high and the hides I have took up a good chunk of the tub, so I left them out.
3. I don't know too much about radiant heat panels, I use flexwatt belly heat and it works great.
4. What Deborah said, it's much easier and safer to weave a long strip of flexwatt through the rack and plug that directly into a herpstat. I have 6 levels on my rack and the tape weaves back and forth throughout, plugs directly into my VE-100, then that plugs into the wall. I'm a big fan of "the less wiring, the better".