Setting up a HUGE BOX TURTLE PALUDARIUM

kicking off the big project that we got going on here this is gonna take a while but I'm just thinking right into it we got a nice big 80 pound bag of quikrete got a bucket some boards and three gallons of water at the moment what I'm gonna do is mix up the quikrete I'm gonna lay a slab down we go right in the bottom of the stock tank and then I'm gonna grab a board and press it on top of that layer of quikrete and then this little area here I'll just fill in with you know extra quickly but I'm gonna press it down lay another slab of across press it down again with another board and I'll keep doing that until it's the pipes that I want and then after that I'm gonna put a bunch of quikrete on the front here so there won't be any boards showing in the water side and you know I can completely seal it so the boards aren't gonna touch water or Lane but it's fine if they touch the land because it's not gonna do anything and should be fine for that but uh I'm doing time-lapse and it mixed up the quick Kootenay real quick add the water and just started on this thing I'm really interested to see how this goes I really don't know how I'm gonna do this about it filling everywhere eighty pound bags it's not the lightest thing in the world you wild duck crap probably should have done that outside it's not too late so I'm gonna pour it outside I'm really glad I did that because if I poured it in here I probably would've actually died so that's what I'm gonna be doing right now I'm gonna mix this up and see how it goes so far [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so it's been just about 24 hours and it's concrete it's now completely dry and it looks pretty good so far now I would like to point out about silicon I'm gonna use the entire bottle on these edges here as you can see this place is so the concrete itself is not watertight here the bottom probably isn't that bad but the sides definitely need silica and keep water in this side and not leaking into the land I was really glad I had these boards propped up like this to keep the concrete how I wanted it and I was able to pull him pull him out well it was still drying and now it's fired in there but I'm gonna start mixing up another bucket I'm gonna add another layer on top of this so the water can be a little deeper I'd like it to be maybe on top of this line here but uh that'll be that concrete is all finished and it looks really good here it looks really good the camera can't pick it up but there's like a lot of really cool texture on the concrete and I mean it's real nice this log here is solid on there I put that into the water side I think would be really cool especially when there's sand in here well but I was thinking down the road depending on the size of the box squirrels that are gonna be in here I'll sing it wouldn't it be cool to have a snake neck turtle living in the water side the box turtles are gonna be in and out water in the water land the snake neck would just be the water side I think that'd be really cool hope you guys let me know what you guys think snake necks are one of my favorite species ever in here is the back side looks really cool and actually I should get a tape measure and measure to see how deep it leaked all right grab the tape measure I think it's gonna be just about nine inches deep not bad that's not bad that's pretty good so right now I'm gonna get silicon and use the entire tube on the sides that is what's gonna keep the water on this side and not leaking on to here so wish me luck on that that's a bit worse so here it is now looking amazing got the silicone in on the sides as you can see I put it on thick which is why it's got all these grooves and stuff it doesn't look the best but I use the entire tube just around surround these here if I sound different it's because I have like a sinus cold that's why but um it's been about a week since I still a coned it so the concrete is 100% cured silicones a hunter percent cured I mean I think I think it's gonna work good so have the first bucket of water here I'm going to be bucketing the water in until it's the depth that I want it and I'm doing that because I want to know exactly how much water is in the water area so maybe later on I'll add sand just depends but for right now I think I'm just gonna leave it there and you know see how it works so just get film to the water I'd need to do this first because if there's any leaks I'll still have time to take the water out get more silicone and reseal it but I think our hope will be okay so as you saw in that time-lapse water started leaking through and it wasn't like just the edges it was through this hole here in the board that was like through the top of the boards so somehow the water was going through the concrete I don't know if that's just because I'm inexperienced or what but it was strange so I got some black seal and if this doesn't do the trick nothing will we all know the power of flex seal so I'm just gonna jump right into it so I sprayed it on used the whole can and the next morning when I checked on it I just there were so many holes left I was going to need to buy at least two more cans so I went out and I bought this cheap pond liner here next one's gonna be using to keep the water in and since I had that log propped up in the concrete I had to level that out so I got some silicone and just still the cone some river rocks on there and it is working just fine [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so in order for me to get the depth of dirt that I want I had to get his big block of peat moss I don't recommend using this as a substrate alone you should always mix it with something but I'm gonna layer a good few inches in the bottom three has been topsoil and then put some eco earth on top of that so this is just for depth and if it's Herman would ever lay eggs in here then it'd also be good for holding community I just want to touch on the dirt I had that peat moss I also mixed three bags of organic topsoil and that's what that is it's not the straight peat moss I was gonna put you could work on top but I actually decided it looked fine and its really functional without the eco Earth so I thought I will hold off on the eco earth unless I absolutely need it and if I don't then it will just be the peat moss and organic potting soil so now put in the plants all a turtle safe putting in the little log hide and I wanted to keep the land area a little bit more planted because that's what it would be like in their natural range and now I'm just setting up an easy access ramp for the turtles so they can get in and out with no problems so here is finally the enclosure pretty much done it's turtle ready that's what I would consider it being it's not completely done because there are some things I still want to do to it fish obviously gonna get some mollies and platies in there and then I'd like to have more of a better Cork or log that's not looking for log hide in there for the turtle in the future Turtles but there are plenty of hiding spaces in here see this plant here it's covering up the whole backside they can hide under all these plants that's why I got them they're very broad leafed very expansive when it comes to their size so they can hide under this a lot and of course Jackie my smaller Malaysian right now and go under that log and also they can bury they like to bury in the dirt and this pretty deep it's about probably a foot deep so that's gonna be pretty exciting hopefully we'll get some eggs from the Malaysians but here it is right now now guys wouldn't it be the coolest thing in the world have a snake neck turtle living in here get a power some key and UVB bulb and stick it like right on the log so you can bask on the log just like a normal turtle would but here it is got the flooville let's see I've still have the box no II don't that's a flooville don't remember the exact specifics of it but it's up it's good up to sixty gallons and it's perfect because I measured it and this is actually exactly sixty gallons which is a really good water depth I mean that's that's a decent amount of water in this enclosure for the Malaysians now keep in mind guys this is still just their indoor enclosure when summer kits they're all going to go outside just like they do every year and their outdoor enclosure is obviously so much better than this because it's bigger it's more natural better water area and it's gonna be awesome so you know what I say let's get Jackie in here see how she likes it so here is Jackie my current Malaysian box here move her into the light you'll see her better she is currently the only one I have I'm gonna be getting more I'm gonna be breeding these guys hopefully hopefully they'll become a staple on the YouTube channel but here she is I told her that she was gonna have to just hang in there with the eastern boxes until I could get her enclosure finished which pretty nice I do have to say so myself so she's a female hopefully gonna be getting her some friends cool thing about her you see like the little ring here I can't really point it out but right here this ring that's all new growth from her since I've got her when I had her or when I bought her she didn't have that ring and now she does so she's been growing quite a bit so we're gonna put her in here I also switched out the logs that's a homemade one that I received from another great youtuber I'll put his channel in the link in description below so we're gonna just watch I wanna go wanna watch her go into the water she wants to hide first I just wanna put her over here little nervous that's to be expected whole new enclosure here I think you would like to be in the lawyer what do you know I guess not well she goes under the bromeliad and I'll keep an eye on her and whenever she decides to go on the water I will record it

Channel: Shelled Reptiles

Views: 84,115

Keywords: turtle, turtes, box turtle, box turtles, turtle tank turtle pond, turtle care turtle pond 2019, box turtle tank, box turtle enclosure

Id: XzSm11skTJQ

Length: 17min 39sec (1059 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2019