Recommendations on dedicated reptile room setup?

Cobra89 · 12-23-17, 08:07 PM

I have a room in my apartment that I've dedicated to my collection, but the shelving unit I bought just didn't work out the way I expected. It's one of those big ones from Home Depot, 48x24..72in height but I separated it to have two units, so two shelves are hip-height and the other two are rather low. I'm missing a ton of usable space, two tanks span the length of the unit but still a lot of space depth-wise.

I want to do away with this shelving unit entirely, as well as another entertainment center I've been using to hold all of the smaller enclosures (lizards, inverts, etc.) and just get a few more appropriately sized shelves. ULTIMATELY I want to upgrade everything to stackable PVC enclosures, but that's something I'm doing over time, as they can get pretty expensive.

The room has about 11x12 of usable space, then a fairly large closet I use to hold supplies. I was considering buying a couple of those long either 72 or 90in metal shelving units for both sides of the room, and possibly another unit at the front, however that might block a bit of natural light coming in. My larger enclosures do not open from the front, so I would need enough space between shelves to have access to the snake(s). My number one goal is to not have any enclosures on the floor, which I thought I could achieve with my current shelves, but it did not work out.

Any suggestions/recommendations are always highly appreciated! Or if anyone knows of someone selling & could ship larger stackable enclosures like Vision, Boaphile, AP Cages, etc, I'm in the NorCal area, I could definitely throw at least $500 - 1k in some enclosure upgrades!

SerpentineDream · 12-23-17, 09:36 PM

We tried to go the shelving route and nothing we looked at worked.

Thus we use modular stacking cages. Check out apcages.com to see what theirs are like. They are fairly reasonable pricewise and some sizes are on sale so that might actually be a reasonable option for you, depending on how many snakes you need to house and how big the cages need to be. The black works better than white IMO because it doesn't yellow over time. There are locks on all of ours to prevent sneaky snakes from pushing the doors open and making a break for it. AP Cages takes forever to fill orders but it's worth the wait. Their stuff is really nice. As you know, modular cages allow you to stack several cages in the footprint of one and save a ton of space. It's amazing how many more animals we were able to fit into our snake room. You can put the bottom cage on rollers to keep it off the floor and so that you can move the whole stack if you need to.

Saw an ad on FaunaClassifieds selling Vision cages but that was SoCal, so a bit of a haul for you. Most people selling used cages will not ship them. It's labor-intensive to break them all down and expensive to ship them so it tends to be local pickup only.

The way our snake room is set up has shelving units for supplies in the closet, then nursery racks in one corner and modular cages stacked 5 high all around the walls. In the middle is a table for miscellaneous tasks and a couple of chairs so we can just sit and watch the snakes.

Cobra89 · 12-23-17, 09:48 PM

Thank you for the recommendation! Another keeper elsewhere suggested AP Cages as well, they look to be about the best bang for the buck. I can get three T8s just under $600 (they have a sale on T8s with sliding glass for $150), and that would make a good deal of room.

SerpentineDream · 12-23-17, 10:30 PM

The rollers for the bottom cage are a bit expensive but worth it. I like that they have a bunch of add-on options for you to choose from too.

Jim Smith · 12-24-17, 09:05 AM

Also, if you do want to use shelving for part of your room, I strongly recommend that you keep an eye on Craigslist offerings. CHeck out the furniture, materials, general and especially the free sections. You'd be surprise to see what you can get for free.

Cobra89 · 12-24-17, 10:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Smith

Also, if you do want to use shelving for part of your room, I strongly recommend that you keep an eye on Craigslist offerings. CHeck out the furniture, materials, general and especially the free sections. You'd be surprise to see what you can get for free.

Yes you are absolutely right about that, I've gotten a ton of amazing deals on Craigslist, especially for enclosures. Fortunately we live next to a Goodwill Depot, it's basically a massive Goodwill inside a warehouse with a bunch of stuff mixed in bins, but they also can fit a bunch of furniture.

pet_snake_78 · 12-28-17, 09:36 PM

Ap cages are really great esp with apartment living and you might move you want sturdy and light and AP is both. For racks, I like the reptile basics racks even though they aren't the cheapest they work the best of the racks I have for greating a gentle gradiant for asian ratsnakes. Some of the other racks I have come with realtively huge gaps above the tubs which I do not trust for the smaller colubrids I keep.

SerpentineDream · 12-29-17, 05:04 AM

I have noticed the same. AP cages are great and their racks are fine for larger hatchlings... but the gap at the top has proven sufficient for some of my tinier hatchlings to wriggle out of their tubs.