fernseher im wohnzimmer platzieren
welcome to another episode of reptil tv-technik. today i want to show you the racks - the best way to go about erecting them. at the moment you can buy two sizes. one is the juvenile "junior" rack for small animals and the other for adult animals, which has the large tank for adult royal pythons. for young royal pythons or other animals you need to check whether keeping them in racks is allowed. some regions allow it and there are regions, where for some strange reason it is forbidden; they think it is wrong
for the poor snakes. that is a definite fact and funnily enough the experts say the same. an animal that is refusing its food or an animal that is not acclimatised should be kept in a rack according to federal recommendations. so that applies throughout germany. it is crazy, but once the animal is well again it must be taken out of the rack, where it recovered, where it began to eat again and suddenly has to start living in the terrarium again. it just does not make sense that from the moment the animal is well, you can keep it in the wrong way. it is complete nonsense in my opinion.
but you must find out whether you can keep animals in a rack or not in your region. i will now show you today the juvenile version of the rack and that for adult animals. you will be delivered what you ordered. you can order everything from single shelves to a complete "plug and play" rack. the first problem for many of you is that the tanks come inside one another as you see here. at first they stick to one another. you have to separate them. the best way is to insert your hand here and support the edge with your thumb
and then with a little patience pull here. on one hand it helps when air can enter, so push gently here at the sides. the air enters and releases the vacuum and suddenly out it comes. so when you receive yours and you think, 'for heaven's sake, they are stuck so fast,! i'll never manage it', really push inwards and have a little patience, pull upward and suddenly the section lifts. you don't need any tools or anything. they come apart on their own very well. that is the first step, so take the tanks out
and put it somewhere close by. then you have solved the problem. i'll put this to one side, so that i can work better. of course, you start building your rack from the bottom up. there are simple feet and for those who don’t want to push the rack all over the place, i would simply recommend the feet. on one hand it is the less expensive solution and on the other the rack stands more securely on the floor. if you want to move it for cleaning or to put it somewhere else you can order the whole system with wheels.
depending on the rack i use a total of 9 feet for a juvenile rack. for an adult rack (the big tanks) i have 7 feet and exactly the same for the end parts - 7 or 9. the drilled holes show you where to put the elements. for the juveniles the feet at the back serve as a stop. so, they are located towards the centre and in the adult racks the feet are on the outside. it is actually obvious where i must begin. but, as i said, it is easiest to start from the bottom. i'll put the tanks to one side now, to give myself a bit of space.
i start from below with the first layer. i put the feet in here. one, two, three, there are seven all the way round. then, in this case, the long bars for the adult rack. these are simply screwed in. you don't need any tools. they are just screwed in as tight as you can by hand, so simply screw them in and there you are! do the same all around. i'll put in one more here at the front to make it clearer. so as i said, this is for the adult rack.
you slide the tank in here at the front and the stop is here at the back. let's just make it secure. you do this for every layer. underneath here i had actually installed the heating mat. there is a variety of heating mats for different room temperatures. as standard they are 28 watts, but you can get nearly 60 watts too. depending on your room temperature and as far as the racks are concerned, i repeat: you cannot place the rack in a cold room at 20 degrees. that is too cold for the animals. more or less everywhere on the individual tanks
there are ventilation holes and if the room is really only 20 degrees then you cannot create a thermal environment in them. you need a terrarium room at 24-25 degrees. if you really want to use the rack in the living room or a cool room, you must either install it in a cupboard, or build something round it to keep the warmth in. or, if necessary, you can cover it, make little fabric boxes or tents to put round the outside to keep the warmth in. then it will be fine.
if you just put it in a cool room, you will not have a decent climate for the snakes. depending on the wattage of the heating mat, i recommend sticking the heating mat from below against the cover. you would then put on the next layer. i still have not put in two of the feet. of course these must also be attached. i'm doing it like this for the sake of convenience. as i said, i recommend sticking the mat on from above. you can stick the self-adhesive heating mats from above. however, the adhesive loses its effect over time because of the heat.
it is best to secure the whole thing with adhesive tape or even duct tape so that the mat stays firmly fixed. you can also attach it below, which is a bit easier; just stick it to the base and you slide the tank over it. i don’t think that is such a good idea, because at the bottom of the tank you have the litter and the heat cannot come through as easily. but, you have to try it out for yourselves, to see whether it is better at the top or at the bottom. it is a matter of opinion as to how well the warmth is diffused. the best thing is to try it out.
so, the mat is secured and most people use a thermostat. i would definitely recommend this. just to recap, the heating mat is slid in from behind. behind here is the stop. here i also put the heating mat in, so that i have the cable and so on behind. i do the same with the thermostat and i lead the thermostat sensor in here at the top. i recommend that you place the sensor somewhere in the middle. in a rack it is also warmer at the top, since heat rises. that cannot be avoided, but i think there are also animals which people prefer to keep a little warmer.
or you can keep the males at the very bottom, to find a clever solution. so, attach the thermostat in the middle, bring it in underneath and secure it with adhesive tape too. fix it here about in the middle or in the rear third, also with adhesive tape. it comes with sucker feet, but they don’t hold for very long. that's why i secure mine with adhesive tape. adjust it so that the thermostat hangs in the upper rack tank. of course, you must take care when pulling it out. the further in you hang it, the further you can pull the tank out without tearing off the thermostat. of course, when you take the tank out completely you have to take care that you don’t rip off the thermostat.
then you have a perfect control system for this rack. up here you have the stops as closing plugs and you place it here. this is just one storey, but below you can see the juvenile rack with several storeys. you put the closing plugs on here, also just screw them on hand-tight, like the others. and there is your rack, finished from bottom to top. you can stack them as high as you want. i would not recommend that you work higher than head-height, because then it is not as easy to look in. in my opinion you need to be able to easily see into every terrarium. you cannot pay as much attention to terrariums, which you cannot look at regularly.
therefore i would build the rack to a maximum of head-height. the higher you build the rack, the sooner it will be when it starts to wobble. it stands on the feet, but i can quite easily secure it to the wall with a bracket like this. with the adult rack i push from front to back, so i attach it securely to the wall. if i have the junior rack, like the one i now have here below, i fix it here to the back wall, because i work from the front. then you can also be sure that the rack is also rock steady and securely fixed. you don't have to, if the rack is moving slightly, that is not a problem.
but securing it to the wall is probably the safer method. depending on the scope of the set you ordered, you get either a thermometer or a thermostat. with the sensor the same applies as for the thermostat. either lead it in as far as possible from behind or else i can lead it in from the side. between the tank and the wood there is a certain gap. this supports the cable, so that when i slide the tank in and out, it glides over the cable. in this way you can insert the sensor into the terrarium. so much for building the rack. as i said, start from the bottom and work up.
the foot with the plug or the little wheel must be at the bottom and then i stack the pieces one on top of the other. it is important to have a little patience, when separating the tanks from each other. build the thing up piece by piece and then you have a perfect snake rack, where breeding will be one hundred per cent successful.