A strange new rack system, a review!

So I decided to gamble on a Chinese product. Not something I usually do, but I had a unique need for a compact system, and this product caught my eye a few months ago.

First, this product is VERY small. It gets loads of bad reviews that I think are buyers who didn’t bother to look at the measurements that are definitely advertised!

Behold, possibly the world’s smallest hatchling rack:

Pictures actually make this setup seem bigger, in my opinion. Please note that the setup I purchased includes a door on front with viewing windows. This is actually unusual, most being sold do not have a front door.

The size is very limiting, but definitely has some practical uses. As pictured, I wanted this for a new litter of Solomon Isle Ground Boas that was just born here. I needed organization and heat to make the daunting task of feeding easier in any way possible, seeing how difficult the species can be to get started.

Other possible ideas might be baby colubrids, especially corns and hognose. If your goal is to simply establish a number of animals for the purpose of sale, then this will certainly work.

The “rack” uses an included back-heat tape system, and surprisingly, the 13 watt heat tape has a cheap ol’ rheostat built into the cord.

Some reviews have stated that the heat tape is junk. I have plugged them all in (I bought 4 racks) and they actually do work. They are a bit thick and the lower wattage only gave me around a ten degree boost in heat, but it happened to be exactly what I needed. This is with the rheostat being fully on high. Grabbing the element to feel heat is probably where the bad reviews came from, you really can’t feel it. An infrared temp gun confirmed the temperature for me, however.

If you plan to use this in a cold basement, you will need more heat. I can’t see the tape working in that scenario. My reptile room ambient temperature is around 75° and the tape is steady at 88°.

As for the downsides:

Materials are PVC for the rack, but there is no real cabinetry work in the outer shell. Furthermore, it is glued together. If you were to drop the rack on a corner, I would fully expect it to be completely disassembled. The shelves do seat into grooves, but the overall design is still pretty lazy and I would reinforce the unit with screws if you feel high risk at knocking one over.

The tubs are actually pretty nice, pre-drilled with ventilation holes. They do not feel brittle at all. There is a “step” in the bottom of each tub that has no advertised use, but your imagination might find creative ways to take advantage of it, such as a half water, half land setup.

The holes drilled are small enough to prevent baby Solomon Isle ground boas from escaping, and the clearance between tub top to the next shelf is sufficient here too.

I’d like to recommend the option with a door for it’s heat-retention properties. I merely bought the unit with the best price tag and the door version was pure luck. The door comes unattached and is the only part that needs “installed”.

The hinges and setup are rather strange and did take a moment to figure out. When done, the door is sloppy in motion. It does close reasonably and is held shut by magnets. I personally prefer the appearance without a door, but I do think the better heat retention is a worthy bonus to live with.

Some quality control is needed, such as placement of the above-mentioned magnets. One tub is likely, out of the 8, to be harder to slide out because the magnet barely sticks out.

Lastly for this review, the only other issue I experience is general difficulty grabbing the tubs to slide them out. There is no lip or knob to grasp to aid in sliding them out, but it’s not unreasonable to find ways to add a knob.

I hope this review helps anyone with tiny pets or other unique demands in our hobby. Feel free to ask questions if you have any. This has been a voluntary review, I am curious to see if the concept grows.

Edit to add: the systems also come with a digital thermometer and hygrometer. It is unfortunately placed towards the front of each system, on the side panel. It also reads only in Celsius, that I am aware of. My temp/hygr. units actually did not come with the batteries they require, so I am assuming they are the same celsius units. I plan to pop them out and replace them with a fahrenheit model that is equipped with a probe so I can read the heat tape directly. These units are cheap, ranging from $2 each for non-probe style, to about $5 each for ones equipped with a probe. Worth the extra money to me. The style is the same as well, and easy to find, so they will snap right into place.

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Nice review. I think ive seen these and thought they were cute little racks. Nice to see an in depth take on them.

They would probably be good for tiny colubrid babies, or just about any really small snake hatchlings. They would probably be good for tiny geckos too.

Let it be said that I would not use this system for cute baby sand boas. The back heat will be insufficient. Just felt this was worth pointing out because a new sand boa owner might be intrigued.
Research should always be done on any “new-to-you” species before making a purchase!

One could always make improvements onto it by adding different heat tape and not using what is provided. And adding a good thermostat of course.

Could you add a link to the website where you found these? Please

Unfortunately I used eBay, and folks will need to search various places to buy these, which is common with chinese products.
Ebay, amazon, and other similar websites will show result for these.
It is commonly called a “reptile breeding box” and clever wordplay will expand or refine results.

Moderators, forgive me if I am out of bounds to suggest other websites.

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I have searched many places before for reptile racks. But have never run across any like these. I posted my thoughts on where to get racks. But I didn’t tell her to buy them or promote any of the sites. She wanted
Suggestions. Thank you

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Very neat, thanks for the review :slight_smile: I came across similar racks the other day (minus the door) and was wondering what the quality was like. The tubs look to be a similar size to Braplasts, ones we use for our expo displays.

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Your all good here :wink::+1:

Fantastic rack review :metal:

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I think I remember seeing a version of this sold on Wish, and I believe it was Snake Discovery that bought one and reviewed it on YouTube.

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You are correct, Snake Discovery did do a review of it on YouTube. I had viewed it and felt it left me with too many questions, especially about clearance for tiny snakes to escape. This is why I went ahead and offered my own review here, and to keep the ability to respond to any other questions people have.
Wish is another place to order them from, but it seems they are all coming from the same couple of warehouses. I was able to get a much better price by looking around and so I encourage people to shop around as well.

Hopefully I will order the temperature units soon to add to this review as well.

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The strange elevated section at the back … is there space for heat cable to fit underneath at all allowing for the below average mat supplied being used?

No, there is not. The raised area is hollow underneath, but the tub still has a full bottom lip around the bottom perimeter. You would have to cut this lip to feed cable into it, and somehow create space for slack in the cable to allow the tubs to slide out.

If anything, I would replace the heat element with quality flexwatt heat tape, and add a quality thermostat.

I have been using the supplied heat tape without issues, and the ambient air temperature in the room is around 75°. The hinged door seems to help reach temperatures I need.