Plastic totes for enclosures?

[OhClueless1]

I have been doing a lot of reading here the last few days and am considering switching my snake from the glass tanks to plastic totes, and I am curious about what I will need. Obviously the totes... but what kind of heater can I use that wouldn't melt the plastic? I am hoping that by switching to the plastic totes will mean I can get rid of the heat lamps which I dislike. Where do the air holes get drilled. I really like the glass tanks but it doesn't matter if the snakes are displayed or not and I have been looking at other snakes I would love to keep and don't want a gazillion glass aquariums all over the place. My house isn't big enough for the pets I have now as it is. LOL

Any ideas anyone has would be helpful. Thanks

[JLC]

Any heating element you attach to it (Under Tank Heat mat or Flexwatt) needs to be controlled by a thermostat or at least a rheostat. If properly controlled, it'll never get hot enough to melt the plastic. And it would reach temps that would burn your snake long before it got hot enough to melt the plastic.

So...you need a UTH or wired Flexwatt...and a decent thermostat.

For the holes in the tub...I use an inexpensive soldering iron to melt holes in the sides. It makes nice, even holes very quickly with no mess left over afterwards. Just be sure to do it outside because it's a very fumey process.

The number of holes you will need will depend a lot on the ambient environment it will be in, as well as little things like the size and placement of the water bowl inside. Safe to say...start out with a row of evenly spaced holes about 2" apart all the way around all four sides. I placed a couple holes at the bottom corners as well, so I could run wires in and out of the tub.

Get it all set up the way you want it and run it for a day or two to see how the temps and humidity settle. Tweak as necessary until you can easily maintain the levels you want....then place snake into new home and rejoice!

[Mindibun]

Most of the people here swear by Rich or Rick (?) at ReptileBasics. That's where I got all my heating stuff from. He has good prices and if you just tell him what size tub you have, he'll take care of the rest. He even rigs the stuff for free so all you do is plug it in when it arrives. I have my two BPs running off of one therm which is set to keep the tanks between 92 and 93. It's been difficult though so I wouldn't recommend putting any more than 2 snakes on one therm. I asked TONS of stupid questions when I first switched over, but things are doing great now. So PM me if you have any other questions. I can help. Or, of course, you can wait for more experienced people to respond. Up to you. ^_^

[SatanicIntention]

If you're using flexwatt, and have a Johnson Controls or Ranco thermostat, you can put ALOT of flexwatt on one thermostat. A panel of 11" flex is only around 20 watts maybe.. A JC or Ranco tstat handles up to 1500watts. No worries

[Sparky1]

Tubs/rack is by far the way to go! I recently moved all 5 of my balls to a rack and all of us are happy with it. Just dont make the mistake i did you can always ADD more holes to the tubs, but they dont go away as easy if you get a lil carried away like myself!