rack question

[Dusty]

ok, will soon (i hope) be building a rack for my snakes and was wondering
for those who have made their own, wich is better to do and why they feel
it to be so.

1) build it so that the tubs go in long ways when sliding in and out
or
2) width wise where when sliding in and out you are doing so from the
widest part of the tubs

also the pros and cons of both if you have made them both ways.

thanks

[muddoc]

I have not made them both ways, but we build the racks so that the tubs go in long ways. Our biggest reasoningfor this, is they take up less wall space. We have 10 CB-70 racks, and needed more wall space.

I can say that depending on how you hook up your heat tape, when building a rack width wise, you could have a small temperature gradient. That is if you ran the tape under the entire back side of the tub.

Hope some of that helps,

[lord jackel]

Outside the temp gradient issue Tim addresses another issue is that the long side of a CB70 tub is not supported that well. The constant pulling on the side to get it in and out will eventually stretch it out(weakening it) and you could run into a case where a gap starts to appear.

[Blue Apple Herps]

I've built it both ways. I built the first couple so that they slid out width ways; this was mainly so that I could interchange tub sizes (i.e. use two 12 qt on a shelf or swap it out for a single 28 qt). This gave me a lot of flexibility to swap it out as was necessary depending on what I was housing. However, that did take up a lot of wall space so I've built several that slide in long ways to replace the width ones. These are fine because all of the residents in there are adults and are permenant.

Doing it width ways I was able to get a good gradient using 3" heat tape along the back. And I've never noticed any bowing from pulling on them too much, but perhaps over the course fo several years it could happen.

I think there are pros and cons to both. Currently I have 2 long and two width ones, and as a set up it works perfect for my needs.

[lord jackel]

I've built it both ways. I built the first couple so that they slid out width ways; this was mainly so that I could interchange tub sizes (i.e. use two 12 qt on a shelf or swap it out for a single 28 qt). This gave me a lot of flexibility to swap it out as was necessary depending on what I was housing. However, that did take up a lot of wall space so I've built several that slide in long ways to replace the width ones. These are fine because all of the residents in there are adults and are permenant.

Doing it width ways I was able to get a good gradient using 3" heat tape along the back. And I've never noticed any bowing from pulling on them too much, but perhaps over the course fo several years it could happen.

I think there are pros and cons to both. Currently I have 2 long and two width ones, and as a set up it works perfect for my needs.

Tim and I were referring to CB70 tubs which are almost 3 foot long and narrow...but I could see where the smaller tubs would eliminate the issues Tim and I described.

Glad you posted so we know the different options based on tub size.