i wanted to show off mitten’s tub. I’ve seen some discussion around how bad tub keeping is and for smaller rainbow boas (babies and juveniles) imo, tubs are great because they really allow for the humidity to say up really high! her humidity never drops below 90% and her substrate (cocofiber, cypress bark and some stones there in the middle) doesn’t dry out. its a taller tub, 18″ high, so she has plenty of room to climb (and she does!) i’ve also converted some branch pieces so that I can use wing nuts to secure them from the outside! (sorta like bird perches) it’s also long enough for her to stretch out still (its almost 4′ long) and she has five (including her cork tube that she uses more often than i anticipated) different hides and a shoebox size tub as a water dish to soak. her warn hide is heated by an ultratherm heat mat on an inkbird thermostat. eventually i will get her a large PVC cage (maybe 4x4x2 or 6x4x2) but for now this is working great!
So why have you sworn off secondhand reptile caging, Laurel?
I’m so glad you asked!
I paid a measly $150 each for two four-tub CB70 setups that reportedly were originally made by RBI. (But please don’t take this as a negative indictment of RBI, they’re a fantastic company with great products - I have no idea just how old these racks are, but safe to say they’re old enough that they’re not manufactured anymore, and they were most definitely used.)
Still, everything looked good when I bought them. It wasn’t until I got the things home that I started having problems.
First, they broke. Literally broke. Both of them.
The back and sides are all one long piece with grooves machined into it where you bend the sides into place. The long pieces I picked up were laid out flat and looked fine. When I got them home and tried to set them up for the first time, one side on each of the racks literally broke off at the groove when I tried to fold them in to put them together. Problem number one.
I solved problem number one by the fact that just adding the shelves and screwing them in holds the whole thing together just fine, but I have to turn the thing on its side to get the shelves in and it’s tricky. Giant pain and more complicated than it needs to be.
Problem number two: the four-inch heat tape that came with the racks didn’t fit in the grooves machined in the shelves. It hung over the edges and wouldn’t recess into the grooves. The heat tape was exactly four inches. The recessed grooves were just sliiightly under four inches. I have no idea why. Problem number two solution: I dropped another $45 on new heat tape, three-inch this time to get it to fit.
Problem number three: the shelves and back are enclosed, and as a CB70 rack the grooves for the heat tape are recessed way at the back of the shelves where I can’t easily reach to tape it down, so I had to take the racks apart and put them back together again to install the new heat tape. Once again dealing with the broken sides.
Things I have learned from this:
I would rather pay extra and buy new than risk getting something used that might inexplicably break.
Buying used is no guarantee you will save money, because you may end up having to replace components of the caging.
I am never getting the enclosed type of racks again, Animal Plastics’ economy line with open sides and back for easy access to the heating element are the way of the future. (This is just personal preference but still.)
You get what you pay for.
You can cut yourself on aluminum foil tape. Like annoying little paper cuts on your fingertips.
Once put together, the racks seem okay, secure and everything and solid, and I have good thermostats on them. But I’m really tempted to buy an AP rack next year just out of sheer frustration. I wouldn’t want to have to take these things apart again if I have to move, for example. I don’t think they’d survive it.
Ugh. I put my snake racks together yesterday, only to discover the heat tape doesn’t freakin’ fit the grooves. It’s too big, so the tubs scrape on it. The previous owner might have been okay with the risk but I’m not. Meaning I have to drop some cash on new heat tape, wait for it to come in, disassemble then reassemble the racks with the right heat tape. :|
I felt like a doofus trying to get these things set up. Can you tape down heat tape to make sure it stays in place in a rack? With what kind of tape? And where should the tape go? Please give a frustrated girl a hand, reptiblr.
