My first rack build !!pics

GeffGecko

GeckoKid
Messages
52
Location
BRONX
Greetings I've been on this forum for about a week now very helpful. I recently bought 2 baby Leo's and got hooked on watching rack videos on youtube for about 48hours. Today I went to Home Depot and got my rack parts.

Tools I had to buy.
Drill $19.99 -Drill Kit $10- Wood Screws $9- $36 of melanine wood

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I went with 26 qt tubs $9.99 each I only bought two for now.
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Way to much melanine wood and way to long. Had to run back to the store 15 mins before closing and have it cut again. Rookie mistake. I had 5 feet high when I only needed about 2 1/2 feet. I am only trying to make a 6 tub rack . Basically 3 racks two tubs on each rack . 5 feet is big enough for probably over 10 tubs to many for me right now. I am going to breed Gecko's but I only intend on doing a small project right now. I want to get 3 females and 1 male. Which will leave space for maybe another male. I am leaving my bottom rack open for now. I also left enough space so I can add a rack if I want in the future.

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5 feet high rack mock set up. ( nothing is screwed in yet because Im still waiting for the drill to charge so it just an upside down rack right now)

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New rack and a quick run to Home Depot just under 3 feet high

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Next I spaced my racks. Some people say to use paper but I used a cd which worked pretty well for a tight fit.
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Heating- I planed on using heat cable not heatflex but im still not sure any suggestion??? anyone using heat cable(zoo med)

This is how you set that up you need a 3 /25 of a inch high board.

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Next you lay the board down and leave about 2inches. This is wear you heat cable will go. The reason why you do this is to not have the tub sitting right on the wire. You want to be able to pull the tub over the cable to desired heat hide placement not on top of it


This is not the heat cable but you can see the space for wire and of coarse I will be using the proper tape to hold the cable down just used some duck tape for now.

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This is how the tub slides over the heat cable. The other option is to cut your wood and lay the cable down in the grooves but I went with this method that just as effective.

I will be posting pictures as I go I hope to finish tonight.

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GeffGecko

GeckoKid
Messages
52
Location
BRONX
Another one of my post from do it yourself about my heat for my rack.
I figured I would do a small test using the heat cable their have been a lot of mixed reviews. My rack is done now but before I hook the cable up I rigged the cable to the top of my rack to test were the hot spots are.

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The way heat cable works is the cord has some spots that are hotter then the other.The first 6 feet of the cable is cold so take that into account as well when buying. The cable got pretty hot real quick like within seconds.

I set my heat for 90 for this test. My rack will be for Leo's so 88 would be their max down to about 75.
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Right in the middle after 5 mins

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I used the same method on the right side and the temp dropped to 86.7

On the left side was 91!!!


So the heat range was about 90 to 86 for one tub.

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The back of the top rack

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From my observation I would say heat cable can do the job and is very easy to set up. I will still most likely use some flex watt for some future racks. My main reason was I did not want to order anything offline I got the cable from my my local pet shop.
 

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