can  you dial the adjustable shelves to within 1cm of precision?

Most snakes are nocturnal, so lighting doesn't matter. Usually just the difference in light in the room they are in is enough to have them on a cycle.

Yep, heat tape. :) 

Switching over to a rack system is great just make sur you get one with appropriate size tubs and a GOOD thermastat.As Abi said lighting isnt needed normally.I have corns hogs and balls in racks with no lights and they are fine.

One thing people always forget to mention with racks. While they save space....are easy to clean, and so on. Heat can be an issue.....those of us who use them normally have a snake room, or heated room to some degree where the ambiant temperture is controlled, which makes using the heat tape easy for providing a simple "hot spot"....not a big deal if you are doing snakes that like cooler tempertures, but since you mention Ball Pythons....it will be tough to heat the rack with just heat tape if your rack is located in an area that runs in the 60s most of the times. Just something to think about....location is really key to properly using a rack system, low ambiant tempertures make the heat tape have to work harder....and thus increases the risk of running hot enough to melt plastic...which does happen from time to time.

~B~

+1 Guru

A blanket over the rack with a timer light in it will compensate and retain heat well. I was rockin' about 55 degrees, and was able to keep it at temp with that... otherwise, mid 70s at best

I make sure my room still has a day/night schedule with the light and that works for my kids. Heat tape will work, as long as you understand how to wire it and safely install it as well as have a GOOD thermostat.  Heat tape doesn't have any guarentees, and there are plenty of horror stories about it. Check them out before you decide for sure.

There is also the option of buying a snake rack. They are ususally pretty reasonable when you break it down to per snake. They usually come with heat as well.  

Actually lighting does matter . And so do many other factors that provide normal life principle to replicate some quality of life .

The only advantage of racks is for human convenience - they allow us to have Many Snakes in environments with no scope , no definition of a photo period , no tactile diversity , no enrichment .

But nothing is defended more vehemently then allegiance to whats easy and whats cheap .

Bonobo- I disagree with you. My racks are very similar to any non-rack encousure. There is a photo period, substrate, (fake) plants, hides. I see no reason for them not to be happy. Yes, it is easier than having 30+ aquariums scattered all over my house. It also keeps all my snakes with appropriate temperatures with more accuracy. 

i understand . i have been on this site infrequently , but enuff to notice how engaged you are with the well being of your snakes .

But there are those who are not . And get more snakes then they can really keep with any thought to life quality at all . It doesnt take much - a handful of sphagnum etc

there is a trend of minimalist strategy - keeping snakes as though they are neurally dead .

You point is well taken, however finding a hoard of people who are looking for "easy and cheap" around here will be difficult. One of the areas thats underdeveloped in our collections is indeed the setting. A while back a friend of mine switched to all natural enclosures for his chondros, and found that behaviorally, they were less arboreal than in a sterile tub/water dish/branch environment. So there's something to be said for it, but little evidence of the benefits and drawbacks.

The same could be said for predators, where if we want it to be "the wild" we'd have to introduce them to keep them mentally sharp, however once you have an animal taken from the wild (or propagated) it is unreasonable to think of things in pure terms anymore. The animals not in the wild. That's your starting point. You can only do so much before it becomes detrimental.

Even a large non minimalist enclosure can be set up with deficits in scope , security ,  and micro climates that inhibit natural behaviors . A captive snake is the same snake neurologically as a wild snake .

Although snake behavior is discreet , and doesnt happen 'on our time' they do have them . It isnt about keeping them "sharp" as much as it is a case of providing principles of biome - correct principles not decorative or assuptive duplicative attempts, to an environment , making it less inert , to instigate natural behaviors.

well the rack i'm making will HAVE lids, not matter how much i don't want it to. 

normally it runs about 70-74 or something like that. the only snakes i'd be keeping on it are BP's a boa and 2 baby corns. still not hereing anything about what size tub a baby boa should be in, does anybody know?

much later i might be able to switch over to a no lid, and larger racks sistem but for now its just some shelves w/ tubs and lids. still saves space compared to the tanks. thanks for all the help! as soon as i get an answer on the boa thing i'll accept + split points

Size of the tub depends on the size of the snake. I'd need more than a baby boa to figure out an appropriate size. And it would also help to know what size enclosure the baby is in now.

There was a time - when heat rocks and gravel were the convenience used with herps , and no one batted an eye then either . For a while . But every cloud has a silver lining - and the damage of dubious methods in the archives of herpetoculture take time to establish - as does the merit of a better way .

in a position of hands on privy with many herps and herp problems - i see hear and deal with what can and is happening with boids especially , raised in bins . Aspergillus , irritation/inflamation of heat sensory pits , a lower vert equivelent of stress induced depression due to a muted photoperiod and flat fixed temp and humidity , these are dramatic , easy to identify but most troubling are the chronic condition of a close and opaque constant visual barrier . its effect on a snake often not recognized by its own keeper and enabled by peer naivete . Yes the boa in a box is unable to assess normal close range visual movement and form - and so it reacts defensive striking behavior . I see it more and more .

one can keep snakes to Have - only really Seeing them when one wishes to Play with them - but one can also keep them in a way that enables one to actually learn about them

the boa is about a foot long, maybe 4 inches. she's been a bit snappy lately, for no real reason. 2 days ago, she was biting just because i set her on my desk to type, and then she started going too far and i started to pick her up and she instantly showed aggresion. i happen to have a plastic bag sitting there and had that in front of her head instead of my hand, while i picked her up from the back and carried her to her cage (with the bag still there) since she has been preparing to strike, curling back her neck, and stuff. she feeds on wednesday, so it could have something to do with hunger, but he first aggresion was 3 days before aggresion. if a bin will make her more aggresive then i'll keep her in a tank.

one example : a binned retic that basically goes insane at the slightest motion . Alot of times the visual deprivation of being closed off from normal movement and images is accentuated by poor ventilation - becuz of drilled holes dubiously placed and amount etc .

ummm.... i could drill a lot of holes? just kind of small

From my experiance with a setup almost exactly like what you are describing, I'd advise one thing that hasn't already been said: Don't drill your holes. Drilled holes are rough edged and have a potential to turn into spiderweb cracks if the tub gets flexed much. I use a little woodburning tool with a pointed tip on it to MELT my holes, which leaves a nice, neat, stable hole with smooth edges. And bigger snakes get bigger and more holes in my tubs, smaller snakes get smaller holes they can't get out of.Airflow is an important thing - I see lots of tubs with holes only on the long sides and none on the ends and this is a bad thing. If a tub is sitting next to another tub and only has side holes, you've blocked at least 50% of the airflow to both tubs. Add holes on both ends and your airflow goes back up.

When discussing "sensory deprivation" in snakes, it is important to factor species into this, and the question of how often the animal is out of the cage, and what the outside enviornment is like. If there is a ton of stuff going on outside the cage, lots of traffic, but the animal is taken out frequently, less view may result in them feeling safer in their cage and less stressed. The same situation with no "out" time could result in an "agressive" snake. And then we have the species issue. Case in point: my own experiences with corns and kings/milks indicate that a natural substrate + hides + handling + large caging results in biting due to the snake feeling threatened and surprised by every attempt to remove them from the cage coupled with a perception that there is somewhere to "run" to. Switching the snakes to layers of paper + hides+ handling + smaller containers resulted in calm snakes that quit biting and have been healthier overall. As far as I can tell they have responded as though removal from the cage didn't initiate a "chase/run/fight" sequence in their minds and they feel more secure in the somewhat smaller cages with a substrate that I don't surprise them in when I pick them up. But none of my snakes are "big" species, or arboreal. They're all nest raiders or mouse eaters by trade, so their prefered "lairs" are crevices and holes or under leaf litter, not the tree branch of a jungle python or the other types of clear sightline locations prefered by large ambush hunters.

There are a TON of variables in this, and no single solution is perfect for every keeper or every snake.

Watch, experiment, keep notes, use common sense and find something that works.

thanks everyone! i got the info i needed. and hopefully i will at least post pictures of when its done.

I just posted a comment in Custom Snake Cage by mistake - not aware if it can be moved .

Good luck pidak - remember there are lots of housing options available to you - not just Rack or Tank . I find enclosures that open from the front - The Best in many ways!

my dream setup is to basically have a garage full of the no lid racks, and then have all my prized critters in vivs or something in my house.