I Built my Axolotl the World's Longest Tunnel

in this video i'm gonna be building an underwater tunnel for my axolotl butters these two tanks will give butters two completely different environments to explore i have a history of creating stimulating environments for my axolotls like this agility course and this awesome foam cave i made for lucy you can really notice they're happier when they have more to explore so this video seemed like a no-brainer the only problem is it's going to be extremely challenging to build and getting it watertight will be almost impossible i also have 500 of plants on the way so we need to get moving before we start building we need to buy a lot of glass but we have a problem my local hardware store is sold out of glass we're gonna have to get moving this store is completely sold out i don't know how we're gonna find this glass this store isn't even open the only option we have is to call a shower company to get the glass cut they want fifteen hundred dollars so that's just way too expensive luckily after a bunch of phone calls i found a door two hours away that had glass and would cut it to size for my axolotl tunnel project i ended up buying a lot of glass to avoid running into this problem again i've never been so excited in my life i needed to drive extremely carefully because i finally had the glass and i couldn't afford to have it break now that we have the glass we can use the blueprints to create a model to scale up i was originally going to make this much smaller but since we have so much glass we can make it much bigger so now that we have a game plan there's only one more thing we need to do make sure that butters will actually go through the tunnel luckily i've done this before with lucy she had a submerged tunnel between her tank and successfully made it through i know this is possible and safe for an axolotl i'm a little worried about the size of this tank and the thickness of the glass i have never built anything of this size i'm going to use extra silicone to try and avoid any leaks it's not going to be pretty but at least the tanks will be watertight i've just realized it's going to be impossible to cut these holes myself the only way to cut an opening like this is with the water jet glass cutting machine these things cost over 60 thousand dollars and take up a huge amount of space this is out of the question to make matters worse it's already leaking we were going to use glass but now we're switching to acrylic which will hopefully be easier to work with we found an acrylic shop that agreed to build this on short notice what i didn't realize is just how difficult this shape is to create the team needs to cut and glue over 20 pieces each piece needs to be super precise so the tank is watertight even though we're not building the tank out of glass anymore it's still going to be nearly impossible to build a tunnel it needs to support 400 pounds of water the shop is called and our tunnel tank is going to be ready for pickup later today but there's a problem traffic is way worse than i thought and we're not going to make it they're only open until 3 pm and they're closed over the weekend we need to get moving we've barely moved in 10 minutes they closed five minutes ago i'm just hoping someone is still around to let us in oh my gosh i've called and the owner is still here he might be able to let us in we're so lucky he said it's ready and he's here to bring it out how do i help we just picked up the tank and now we need to get it home i'm gonna have to drive super carefully because it's really fragile [Music] tank looks exactly how i want it let's unwrap it and get a closer look now that we have the tank in the studio there's only one more thing to do water test it and check for any leaks if the tank leaks this will have all been for nothing and will never know if butters would have made it through the tunnel i'm going to use this cup and start filling it up let's slowly fill up the tank and stop every few inches to inspect for release if i'm being honest i don't know if this is going to work i've never done anything like this and i really want butters to have his dream tank it looks like there are a few air bubbles in the seams of the tank i wonder if this is normal or if we're going to have a problem here this tank costs a lot of money and to make matters worse the 500 of plants is arriving soon we filled up the tank and there's still no leaking i'm so happy we're going to get to see butters cross this thing just to be sure i'm going to leave the tank filled overnight this will make sure it's watertight the next day the tank was still standing this is awesome i'm adding in some green food coloring to see how the flow works with just one filter so we have a problem the water isn't flowing and we're gonna need two filters for this build we can finally start setting up our tanks for butters the plants just arrived let's see how they look let's open up the plants and see how they look from transit it's colder here in chicago and sometimes plants arrive in poor shape here's the moment of truth let's see how these look we're looking good so far but we have a couple that are damaged once we get these into the tank with some sand and light on them they should regrow i wanted to create two completely different environments for butters so i made one tank with white sand and the other with black sand you need to be really careful here you can only use sand with your axolotl if it's longer than three inches butters has been in this bare bottom tank for a while but let's measure him to be sure he's now ready for sand i have no idea how i'm going to get this sand into the center of the tunnel it's really long luckily i have a tiny spade to help me get it in there we're looking good let's use siri stone since it's nice and smooth this will be perfect for butter but be careful you want to make sure that your stones are securely stacked i like to use super glue to be super safe butters must be protected at all costs in the other tank we'll use wood this is going to be super cool but only if we can get the plants in before they go bad otherwise it'll just be a bare piece of wood thankfully the plants are looking good all of these are great in lower light which axolotls love typically a lot of these plants will grow much better with plant substrate in the sand they won't get all of the nutrients they need but you can use root tabs to help them grow it's time to fill up the tank for the last time every time i do this i get so nervous will he even swim through the tunnel after all of this effort or will he just be lazy and stay on one side now we play the waiting game and cycle our fish tank it's finally time to add butter but we have a problem the water has slightly different parameters than its current tank we don't want to add them straight in as this can be stressful luckily there's a super simple solution for this i'm going to use this cup to introduce them to the new tank water over the course of an hour axolotls aren't as sensitive as other wet pets but we want to be super safe since butters is super special if you've seen other videos on my channel you'll know that butters is the world's rarest axolotl he is one of three like them butters will continue to grow and become even brighter yellow if you don't want to miss this be sure to hit subscribe and like this video for butter let's add butters to his new home he's loving his new setup i can't wait for him to realize there's a whole other world to explore on the other side we have a problem it's been a full hour and he hasn't moved from the side of the tank i'm starting to think he's never going to make it to the other side of the tunnel oh my gosh here he goes he's finally headed towards the tunnel i just know he's going to love his second tank oh no he snapped dead in his tracks and to make everything worse he's even got distracted by this plant i don't know why i put so many plants in i should have made this tank boring so he was encouraged to leave it let's add some motivation axolotls have a great sense of smell so i'm going to put a nightcrawler on the other side this is his favorite snack speaking of favorites if you subscribe to this channel right now one of you will win my favorite fish tank setup a beautiful four gallon rimless aquarium and everything you need to get started so subscribe right now while i was busy welcoming you to the aqua crew butters made his first move go butters he found the worm and he's basically through the tunnel butters has made it through the tunnel this is incredible he is experiencing a whole new world over the next day in the studio he must have gone back and forth over 20 times we just made butters an underwater tunnel the first in the world make sure you subscribe and i'll see you next week

Channel: Aquarium Info

Views: 9,826,324

Keywords: aquarium info, axolotl pet, axolotl minecraft, axolotl, pet axolotl in real life, pet axolotl care, pet axolotl minecraft, axolotl cave, rare axolotl, rare axolotl minecraft, axolotl tank setup, axolotl tunnel real life, minecraft, aquarium info axolotl, aquarium info kirby

Id: h0fbvurfwAc

Length: 8min 5sec (485 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 14 2022