HUGE INDOOR BOX TURTLE VIVARIUM BUILD!

foreign [Music] I just tore this animal room apart because huge changes are coming to it right now Otis the famous Eastern box turtle is getting a brand new home and it's a mansion size of an enclosure made by the one and only toad Ranch and you guys are gonna build it with me [Music] Otis is a very famous Eastern box turtle and if you don't know who he is by now you need to get caught up first so make sure you click this link above me to find out who he is over the last two years we've done a lot of different videos with Otis and as time goes on he just gets more and more well known and it's time for an upgrade Casey and I put this enclosure together for him after we got him in 2021 and while it served him well it really isn't the best idea long term for a box turtle because box turtles require humidity we've done a lot of videos that cover what box turtles really need and although Otis acts like a dog he is a turtle at heart through and through and he has boxed Turtle needs which means we absolutely have to provide for him so what better way than to team up with our good friends Jared and Danny Lynn over at the one and only toad Ranch cages this is going to be our fifth enclosure that we've done with toad Ranch and as I've said many times they are the absolute best when it comes to these custom built fully functional and durable reptile and amphibian enclosures but toad Ranch is all about Innovation so it's not just about creativity and durability they're always doing better and they're front frame to these enclosures is what's so unique and actually their signature feature to them so a toad Ranch enclosure is not just another PVC reptile enclosure on the market and let me tell you uh this enclosure for Otis is so big this is only one of the front frames [Music] so although toad Ranch makes beautiful custom units that seem like a challenge to put together they absolutely are not they're very easy because in that sense you are just basically assembling a box so we're going to get started with that right now all holes are pre-drilled they even send you the screws to put the units together and they come together pretty easily but an enclosure of this size that's actually two parts coming together does require at least two people to build let's get started ah the great outdoors birds chirping insects you probably think I'm outside this is Toad ranch's other signature trait this is destination's background where you get an insanely realistic background to go along with the reptile that you are housing or amphibian inside these enclosures in the case of Otis he is an Eastern Box Turtle he comes from forested areas that also open up into fields and because it's Otis we had to pick the right background because we wanted to make sure he was going to be happy so Jared and I went back and forth for quite a while before we picked this amazing backdrop but remember this is only half of it what do you think dude closure is so big we have to join two sides together and that's what we're using this middle bracket for this is going to allow the enclosure to look as though it's one piece when it actually is not it's on a pedestal too so all together this enclosure is going to measure 10 feet long two feet deep and four feet high [Music] foreign [Music] so that's one side of Otis's new enclosure almost complete we still have to put the frame and of course the tempered glass sliding glass doors on but that goes on last what I'm going to do now is build the second half and then show you how we're going to marry them together [Music] so as always we're using Arcadia products for lighting when it comes to setting up our toad Ranch enclosures this time we are using the pro T5 UVB kit with the 12 bulb and that's for your UVB but we're also using the jungle Dawn LED bar which is brand new for us at least we've never used one before so I'm excited to see how lit up this enclosure looks and lastly we are also using their new I think this is new the pro ceramic lamp holder and bracket and this can hold up to 250 Watts as a basking light you don't want that for a box turtle of any kind of course box turtles actually don't need it that hot so we're probably only going to go like 75 Watts maybe 100 in here because this is a big enclosure but what we want to happen in this more than heat is humidity build up but luckily Jared also included a fan which is going to go on the far right side of Otis's enclosure to make sure that if we keep it well ventilated at all times and that he's never in danger of overheating so I'm installing the Basking light [Music] to one far corner of the enclosure because you want to keep the Basking area isolated to far ends of any enclosure you never want to blast a reptile of any kind with just straight heat everywhere so that's pretty much your rule of thumb when you're trying to find a place to put your basking light or basking area you always want it to be in a corner or one far side or an enclosure this big you could put one on either side because it's so expansive the animal can always get away from the heat if it needs to [Music] so toad Ranch always includes these little divots or cutouts at the back of the enclosure where the top meets the back so that you can push the wire through before you fully screw it in place and this way you don't get your wire pinched [Music] all right we're on day two of putting together Otis's brand new mansion of a turtle enclosure and I'm standing in the forest why because we're going to use the actual natural forest floor for this box turtle enclosure don't get nervous this is actually really good because the invertebrates that are going to naturally be found within this substrate are things that we want any box turtle to naturally consume so let me start loading up this wheelbarrow and getting it into our nature room all right foreign [Music] we've got about six to eight inches which is great and before we do anything else we got to start figuring out how we're going to decorate this for him because the final touches that go on at the very end are things we don't want to be disturbed by any of the other decorating we're going to be doing what we're going to do is we're going to take some pieces from Otis's existing enclosure because they're pieces that he's used to and they look really good and then we've also got some new things like this this is a fake stump made by Universal rocks it if you've watched our other toad Ranch enclosure builds we use a lot of products from Universal rocks because um they're really sturdy they're lightweight and they look really natural but we're going to do a combination of both this is a nice log that we pulled from the woods right here and we've got Fallen logs in the background of Otis's new enclosure so we're just going to start creating depth but Casey also brought up a good point since this is two enclosures put together basically we don't want to put a log a big long log like this on only one side because when you're looking at the enclosure from afar having a piece this big on only one side is going to make it look like it is two different enclosures so something like this is going to span one into the other so you can see that it is one continuous enclosure okay okay now I think we gotta use his favorite log High there's like a fake log high that you can buy from pet stores and he loves to go inside it from the back and then stick his head through the fake hole we've got a bunch of cute shots of him doing that he seems to really enjoy it so I want to make sure I do incorporate that in here gotta find the right spots though I'm gonna mimic the background with it I always throw a little bit of substrate on everything because that makes it look more natural and uh we're just starting to try to create that depth and mimic the background a little bit and uh at the end things will really come together because we're going to add some very interesting Finishing Touches on to the next piece I think that looks cool next upper is water dishes we're doing more than one because on a forest floor Otis or another box turtle walking around might come in contact with something called a Vernal Pond which is a semi-permanent body of water that fills up during one season and then drains out during another amphibians love to use them to breed in and turtles love to use them to soak Wade and even forage for invertebrate um and [Music] box turtles love to you that and box turtles will seek those areas out during different times of the year to use them for different reasons so by giving Otis more than one body of water again it's like a naturalistic type environment [Music] so what I'm doing with this first water dish I'm gonna recess it here right at the base of this fake stump because in nature this is a good area where water would naturally pool as it collects on stumps and logs and as it Cascades down trees or even little waterfalls and more Upland areas it'll pull so that's kind of what this will naturally do here especially when we give him artificial rains so he can easily get in and out of this it's tucked right in it'll have a nice form and when I need to change it I can just pull it right out so again this enclosure is two that are joined together but what we want to do is we want to hide this area where they combine so what I've done is I've taken a branch of a tree and I've decorated it by drilling holes and hot gluing or super gluing fake pine needles and also pine cones Pine is an important part of most box turtle environments and even though there's no Pine in the background of this we want to incorporate it in the foreground because we're also going to be using pine litter for Otis to forage and hunt in and of course to bury himself in so this is what we're going to do right now is I'm going to screw this fake tree in so that we don't see the seam and then we're going to decorate it with even more of these fake pine needles so that we really cover it up as much as possible [Music] so the natural forest floor that we're using in there for Otis's enclosure is exactly what nature is offering us here it's the soil and sand and all the components that naturally have formed in there from decaying leaf and pine litter among other things but what we want to do is actually add a nice thick layer of Pine and leaf litter on top of that because box turtles don't just start hanging out on bare ground and really with nothing to cover them they need that to feel safe and create forms in so it's not just about the logs or other things you give them to hide in they should have some kind of substrate on top of the substrate so we're just going to grab some of this naturally occurring stuff right here yeah this is great stuff and you don't even have to go and buy it nature is providing it for us and the turtles this is Pitch Pine litter and oak leaves and well box turtles always occur on this stuff up here in New Jersey [Music] I'm pretty happy with this I think it looks really great uh this is what Casey and I love to get together and do is try to decorate these things these indoor units to make them look like they're a little piece of nature it's a lot easier when you're doing it Outdoors but you can make it possible indoors and interestingly not a single plant in here is live we pick these up from places like Hobby Lobby and Michael's that'll hold really good sales on them and they're safe for the animals especially in the case of a box turtle he's not gonna go trying to eat this stuff and even if he did it's all really secure different pieces of wood are attached to each other nothing is going anywhere so now we just got to add a couple final touches and then we can get Otis released into this big mansion foreign and leaf litter to this some of you might be thinking oh aren't you concerned about bugs inside with this having a natural forest floor and of course natural litter no and that's because bioactive is always better so this unit has things like isopods and springtails in it and earthworms so not only are those invertebrates a cleanup crew for any of the waste that forms in here but they're also food for Otis so I welcome bugs in a unit like this but also don't forget we have an outdoor reptile building that these enclosures are housed in even if you have something like this in your living room you can still add isopods and springtails to beddings that you buy from pet stores or garden supply stores to help keep it bioactive because when you think bug you might think oh it's dirty but it's the other way around it's actually keeping the environment clean come on [Music] this is sheet Moss from outside grows pretty much anywhere where there is moisture on the ground so all you do is you take a shovel and you can lift a sheet up no problem and you can transplant it into a terrarium or vivarium like Otis's but you gotta try to keep it alive and that means you have to have it on the right type of substrate you've got to keep the area moist and humid um so this stuff does tend to die out but it looks amazing and even after it dries it is still perfectly suitable for a forest dwelling animal like a box turtle so we're just gonna strategically place this stuff for a really randomly place it actually and um see if it takes and in some areas it probably will whereas other areas it might just die off and that's totally fine you can replace it too thank you all right we're almost there it is almost time to put Otis inside this enclosure but first and foremost I've got to go ahead and wet this whole thing down because humidity and moisture are crucial for box turtles to stay healthy and of course well hydrated and that's why the original enclosure that we designed for him here inside our nature room really kind of lived out its life you know it doesn't retain much humidity we constantly have to soak Otis and do artificial rains yada yada he needs to be in something like this which is basically considered a closed chamber and that locks in that precious moisture so once he goes in and we're done wetting this whole thing down then the tempered glass doors go on and that's going to really seal in that humidity but don't forget we have ventilation and of course a fan to keep this at an ideal temperature for him at all times [Music] [Music] thank you foreign [Music] the moment we've all been waiting for I'm tired I'm beat I'm sweaty but it was worth it this toad Ranch Mansion of a box turtle enclosure is all completed it is decorated it has everything a box turtle needs don't forget Otis does get outdoor time here in the summer but since he's such a special box turtle in terms of well we really don't know why he acts the way he does he is primarily indoors but if he's going to be indoors then he's got to get something like this he can hunt in here of course we're going to continue to feed him but we can keep this a really nice humid Forest style environment for him which is going to go a very long way so what do you say we get him in here and we start seeing what he uh thinks of it [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] this is so awesome he's already exploring he even found a worm that we dug up in the ground and he quickly made work of that he's drinking which means he's finding these artificial water holes just fine he's got areas to climb plenty of areas to burrow underneath and of course he doesn't lose his enthusiasm for us so this I consider your ultimate indoor box turtle habitat and it could work for a variety of other species as well and not just Turtles there are plenty of reptiles that you could keep in this because of course toad Ranch cages specializes in the most incredible top-notch high quality reptile and amphibian enclosures on the market make sure you guys use our affiliate link that's going to be in the description of this video to shop anything at toad Ranch including the other products that they carry I'm telling you guys you will not be disappointed the work that they do on these units is incomparable it truly is so Otis has gone home he is in his permanent indoor home here he seems very happy we're of course going to continue to daily interact with him and you guys will be seeing many many other videos on all our platforms of this special little Eastern Box Turtle foreign [Music]

Channel: Garden State Tortoise

Views: 29,404

Keywords: Box turtle care, Best box turtle care tips, best pet tortoise, best pet turtle, eastern box turtle info, Otis the turtle, Otis box turtle, box tortoise, garden state tortoise, toad ranch cages, best indoor turtle set up, best turtle habitat, best box turtle habitat, box turtle facts, box turtles, don’t get a box turtle, pet box turtle care info, baby box turtle care tips, best baby box turtle care info

Id: QhfGOE6bPM8

Length: 19min 53sec (1193 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 05 2023