# Reptile rack heating



## Iguana lover (Apr 1, 2021)

So it would be open front and the really useful boxes would be stacked without shelving between them so would having a heat mat or heat cable on the back be sufficient to heat a range of reptiles


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Stick with the tried and tested tradition of using shelved unit with heat mats / cable under each tub. The cable is designed to warm through conduction - assuming the boxes pressed hard against the ends of the tubs the snake would get heat from one side which is unnatural. Also as heat rises, the control over how warm each tub gets will be hard to manage. Having mats on shelving, each pair controlled by a thermostat (pulse stats work well to maintain a stable temp without swings) is IMO the better option


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## LiasisUK (Sep 30, 2019)

Iguana lover said:


> View attachment 367215
> 
> 
> So it would be open front and the really useful boxes would be stacked without shelving between them so would having a heat mat or heat cable on the back be sufficient to heat a range of reptiles



This wouldn't get warm enough for many species.


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## Iguana lover (Apr 1, 2021)

Ok thanks for the help aslo is this tub suitable to be built into a rack for things like corn snakes, milk snakes, hognoses, royals and maybe other stuff








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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

50L - struth.... that's a lot of space

I get the impression you are trying to expand your collection on the cheap. Trying to use one heat source and one thermostat to heat multiple tubs in a non conventional way. Given the size of these boxes you must have the space for a stack of vivs or a traditional rack with shelving and individual heated shelves as recommended above. If you are opting to use such a large tub then it will need a decent size heat mat underneath to cover the 1/3 - 1/2 the floor area.


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## Iguana lover (Apr 1, 2021)

Ok if the tub could be smaller what's the minimum size for the species I listed above


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Iguana lover said:


> Ok if the tub could be smaller what's the minimum size for the species I listed above


Hard to say really as the corn will be more active than the royal. Minimum for the royal would be 32l 

Any reason you're not considering a stack of 4' vivs ?


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## Iguana lover (Apr 1, 2021)

I didn't want to have to spend loads of money on 3 or 4 vivs and wanted to build a rack with maybe 10-15 so I can have more range in species 
What size would you say was minimum for the corn and what would be a good sized rub for most snakes similar in size


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Iguana lover said:


> I didn't want to have to spend loads of money on 3 or 4 vivs and wanted to build a rack with maybe 10-15 so I can have more range in species
> What size would you say was minimum for the corn and what would be a good sized rub for most snakes similar in size


Can't really answer your question as other than a hatchling rack for when I breed Royals I keep everything in vivarium's. There has been lots of discussions on minimum viv sizes but very little on rubs. If you look at some setups, a four foot 2.5kg royal is stuffed into a 19l or smaller tub where it can't do much else than sit still. Others use proper rack systems with V70 (70 ltr) tubs


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## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

I keep my female hognose in a V70, as my smaller (32qt; OK for males) tubs aren't large enough (V70 is kind of minimal, honestly -- hogs can be pretty active). 

Milks are a big range, depends on the species. Smaller species like polyzona (Pueblans, Nelsons) are tolerable but tight in 32 qt; the larger Central American species (micropholis) are kind of cozy in a 4' x 2' viv.

I moved my male royal out of a V70 a couple years ago into a 4' x 2' viv, and I wouldn't keep a royal in anything smaller based on how he's acting in the new viv.

WIth that range of species, independent thermostats is going to be necessary. Hogs and milks really shouldn't share a rack that's all the same temp; even trying to game the temp differential between top and bottom tubs doesn't always pan out (some snake may need a little boost in heat, while others are already sweating). Belly heat tape, with a thermostat channel per every couple tubs, is the way to go. Designing something that doesn't have the option to dial in individual animals is not a recipe for success.


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## Elly66 (Feb 27, 2021)

Iguana lover said:


> I didn't want to have to spend loads of money on 3 or 4 vivs and wanted to build a rack with maybe 10-15 so I can have more range in species
> What size would you say was minimum for the corn and what would be a good sized rub for most snakes similar in size


Remember, different species have different needs. Personally, I'd say have fewer snakes and give them much more suitable living areas. I prefer to see the animals well-being come before my want of more.

My corn is a good 5ft long and uses every inch of her 3ft x 2ft x 2ft vivarium and I can't imagine sticking her in a tub where she can't stretch out. To be honest, I'd like to get her a bigger vivarium. Her water bowl alone (which she loves to get into) would take up a large part of a tub.
My juvenile Royal is also in the same size vivarium, but will soon be moving to a bigger one.


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## LiasisUK (Sep 30, 2019)

Just buy vivs for them and keep your animals properly.

Plenty of preowned vivariums around you can pick up cheap on FB marketplace and preloved.


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## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

Elly66 said:


> breeds


* species. There aren't breeds of reptiles.


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## Elly66 (Feb 27, 2021)

Malum Argenteum said:


> * species. There aren't breeds of reptiles.


Edited, got morphine fog brain today.
Saying that, can we truly say that there's no breeds amongst the species 🤔


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## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Elly66 said:


> Edited, got morphine fog brain today.
> Saying that, can we truly say that there's no breeds amongst the species 🤔


Elly, if its any consolation I used to get confused as well. I mean you have dog as the species, and then breeds such as German Shepheard, terrier, etc. So it's easy to treat snake the same, ie snake is the species and then the breeds would be royal python etc.... but that's not the case, snakes are the taxonomy for the species, with the "breeds" being the individual species...


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## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

Elly66 said:


> Saying that, can we truly say that there's no breeds amongst the species 🤔


Well, when the word 'breed' is typically used, it denotes a line of selectively bred animals that share a cluster of conformation, coloration, and behavioral traits; these breeds are typically formed with an end goal in mind, and are created by crossing existing breeds together and sometimes backcrossing to wild type stock. 

So (to keep with animals I actually keep or have kept), the 'Dominique' chicken breed was selectively created to have a combination of good foraging skills, good egg production, and a barred pattern to help with predator avoidance; they are bare legged and rose combed for good tolerance of cold and wet weather, and have good behavior toward humans and other birds in the flock. The 'Katahdin' breed of sheep was created out of the need for a heat and parasite resistant low maintenance meat breed, from a handful of British meat breeds for a productive body type, a couple existing Caribbean breeds used for parasite resistance and a shedding coat, and then a good amount of selective breeding to end up with a polled (hornless) sheep.

In reptiles and amphibians, we don't breed for a unified group of morphological and behavioral traits as an end goal package (thankfully). We also have a much more detailed descriptive scheme than reducing traits to "breeds"; we can independently track 

species, 
subspecies, 
locales, 
selectively bred polygenetic morphs (Albey Snow leos), 
single-gene morphs
heterozygous gene carriers, 
named multi-gene morphs (e.g. RAPTOR leos, Super Galaxy leos)
lines (e.g. 'Lopez line' knoblochi that came from the stock of one specific breeder, or 'San Antonio Zoo line' black milk snakes that can be traced to one batch of imports), 
polygenetic natural pattern types (types 1, 2 and 3 knoblochi; mourning gecko types)
color variants (Extreme Red hognose)​
While some of this gets pretty silly (multi gene morph names are a caricature of themselves, sometimes), we do have the ability to track a lot of very useful information. Locales and lines, for example, carry a lot of history on the animal's ancestry. Locale tracking makes it possible to continue to conclusively ID animals in taxa that undergo the sort of big changes that are happening lately with the prevalence of phylogenetic research. Subspecies knowledge makes it possible for me to know if my animals are legal or illegal to keep in my state (pretty common here to have state and county laws at the ssp level).

Further, keeping straight on what we have rather than creating "breeds" is important since many of the species, locales, etc that we have in captivity need to be preserved as such since we can't get any more. Many were smuggled and let's not do more of that, thank you; many that weren't protected at the time of import now are and can't be collected legally (e.g leopard geckos), some locales have been extirpated in the wild because of collection (_Ranitomeya sirensis_ 'Highland', which captive populations we incidentally almost lost entirely because of market forces, and probably eventually will lose since it is again going down the same dumb hobby path).

Also, tracking these things gives keepers a better opportunity to connect intellectually with the wild species. If I have a corn snake, I can learn about corn snake behavior directly from it, and I'm led to read about wild corn snakes, and even try to find one if I travel to their native range. But most people who keep a dog do not not know or care much about wolves; most who own a dairy probably have not even heard of an aurochs. Dogs and cows are far enough from their wild ancestors that they're different species; I hope we don't do that with reptiles and amphibians.


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