Setting up New and Improved Turtle Tanks!

today is a big project day we're going to be taking Chloe a rescued snapping turtle since she has outgrown this 40 gallon aquarium and will be upgrading her to a 100 gallon watering trough used for horses and cattle Chloe's trough will be going into Rex's room he uses his pool and only the basking spot but we're going to leave half of this forum thanks for pooping in your cave dude and we will be putting her 100 gallon trough in the corner right here hopefully as long as it fits then we'll be taking these stink pots or musk turtles from this tank and moving them down into Chloe's 40 gallon which will give them tons of space as well as give a little extra space for the other turtles that live in our 75 anyway we have a lot of work ahead of us let's get started this is Chloe's new enclosure and just to give you an idea for how big it is I can fit in it [Music] [Music] someone's all tuckered out from all the exciting things happening in his room [Music] I think we haven't figured out from the stock tank it will drain out into here but quiet you're fine and it'll drain then into Rex's pool and inside of this basket where he can't reach it and pull the tubes it will be sucked out and into this canister filter and then once it's cleaned it'll shoot through a heater and back into the snapping turtle tank now I'm just siphoning out the guns that have settled in Rex's pool because we want everything to start clean since they'll be sharing a filter Hey look well that's cool that's 1 over X his teeth really we should almost sell necklaces with Rex's teeth in them there you go if anyone would be interested in the necklace with Rex's tooth in it comment below there's like six in you more on the other side too okay yeah other side 3mm oh yeah there's there's one there's one there's two so before you learn tricks your pain before anyone freaks out alligators do shed their teeth constantly and they're constantly growing new ones as well to replace them so this is normal it's not because he has something wrong with them that we're finding teeth they're just getting to be there if you got an alligator [Music] where could Rex be hiding I don't know he's pretty well hidden well it's getting really close to the moment of truth when we determine if it drains properly without leaking out the back so we don't see any try to see yet so our fingers are crossed all right water level is over the strainer so let's test it out is it draining dress it works now we'll just fill it Rex is pool and it'll be one big cycle and no drips and everything is filled up it's all finished the heater and the filter are both are running we have a little bit of driftwood in here for now what I still have to add would be a UVB light on top and maybe a couple other larger objects for her to climb on or push off from when she swims but other than that it's done now it's time to add Chloe uh uh hang on the water level in the stock tank is raising and Rex's pool is draining which means that the filter is pushing water in at a faster rate than it is draining out which is odd because the tubes are exactly the same size than me that we use for drainage that Thea canister filter is using but regardless we have to adjust this somehow we added a second strainer now it's ready one of the drainage pipes is bubbling but that's okay because Rex likes to look at the bubbles throughout the day and it'll keep the fish alive longer when we feed him live fish do you like your bubbles all right Chloe it's your big day you're such a sweetie I do like you you're such a friendly snapping turtle you ready here we go check it out right into the input - all right you want to bet I did it thank you now the next project for today is moving these stink pots down into Chloe's tank removing the stink pots down there into their own 40 gallon tank for just the trio because we're hoping we can set them up for breeding because big pots or must turtles make a really good pet turtle compared to most others because of their small adult size you are hungry apparently if you ever have calcium buildup on the glass of an aquarium or areas that matter the best way to get rid of it and very quickly is to use pH down or pH decrease that goes by different names it's basically sulfuric acid and so do be careful if you use this but you just pour a little bit onto a sponge wipe it on top of the calcium buildup let it sit for a few seconds and then you can actually wipe it right off sometimes if it's really build up like this is it might take like right here another Kobe but it'll look good as new after you're done with this and it's okay the drips into the tank because it's fish-safe and therefore it's Turtles safe - lets see how it looks tada might take a little bit more TLC right there but the rest looks like it's a brand new tank all right now that the glass is clean we're going to add sand as the base because the stink pots left to forage on the bottom of the tank so this will give them some enrichment tip number two if you're scooping sand or gravel into a tank at an upward angle beta cups from Petsmart work really well as scoopers I also do not have the filter running at this point because I don't want to suck up all the silt that comes in with this sand let it settle first before you start up the filter also remember to rinse out your sand first because there's a lot of very small particles that just dirty up through water if you don't rinse it out first rinse it until the water is as clear as you can get it and when you put it into the tank lower the cup to the bottom and then spill it out so it doesn't spread as much as if you're at a court in from above [Music] at this point you could either do a big water change to remove all of this free-floating silt or you can let it settle as much as it can and then when you turn on the filter it might stir it up again but then the filter will catch that silt in the water just make sure you clean out your filter pretty soon afterwards so that it doesn't get to gunk duck but it will catch it for you I'm going to do the latter of the two that way to turn on the filter to kind of clear it out I'm going to let it sit for a little while until I can put things in into it and kind of decorate it and then add the turtles last [Music] now that the water has cleared up we can add our accessories and there were plants and this is gonna deck it out with all sorts of stuff for the sink pass [Music] we had a new Basking platform style that we're going to use we cut this to fit and you can just get this material at Menards or from me but really any hardware store and it's really easy to cut and we're going to suspend suspend it right above the water level so that they can remain completely dry when they sit on top and we figured the easiest way to hold it up would be with suction cups just holding it up on the side [Music] nicely will add the UPV for that spend most of time in the water I'm going to put the UVB handle over the water but if they need a lot of UVB in they're feeling it for some reason to bask underneath it they still have that opportunity to do so right here well we're gonna love this even have a tunnel on the way to me all right finally let's add the stinkpot this is our boy he has a little bit more of an attitude than the other two we can tell he's the boy because he has the longer thicker tail him in and he has two girlfriends we have this one which was we found on Craigslist being sold as a manta turtle obviously that is not true and I was really excited to discover it was in fact a stink pot I will set her in here and his other girlfriend which is she and him came from the musk turtle unboxing video they're still doing great as you can see she's very active look at her go oh this is like a mansion for them they're gonna friggin love this and then the plan is maybe to get some water lettuce or duck wheat or maybe I can put some corn work from my aquarium upstairs in here and get some more natural plants then and finally we'll have to add some sort of nesting area for these guys up here but that'll come a little bit later once we figure out what exactly you want to do for that and this is about full-grown for stink pots or musk turtles which is why we think they're one of the better Turtles to keep because they're less likely to outgrow their tank and therefore be unwanted and end up in rescues so if you want a pet turtle a musk turtle is the way to go and hopefully we'll have some captive bred babies from this trio in the future this is also a species that spends most of their time on the ground which is why we did decide to do some sort of substrate for them so it could provide some enrichment opportunities instead of a bare bottom to tank in the meantime our softshell turtle likes his brand new piece of driftwood I think another benefit of this style of Basking platform is it allows light to pass through it as opposed to a solid platform which would just block it off it'll keep the bottom of the tank a lot brighter as a result and giving the remaining turtles in the seventy five a new platform because their old one was starting to sag it really needed to be replaced so they're getting a new one too [Music] yeah good platform area from a terrible friend of ours and did a good job cutting this disguise you're gonna have to go under this so you have to go under thee oh that's nicer than the last one goodbye and this is pushed out by a brace underneath so that it won't just hang vertically so it's actually a ranch they can climb up here's their basking light oh my god that looks awesome I can't wait and they can all fit on there too even this big lady there you go nice now the turtles can bask under the light and under their UVB and they can literally drip dry Turtles will stretch their legs out behind them in case you've ever seen them basking in the wild we'll do this because they need to completely dry in order to kill the bacteria on their bodies so this way they can dry off completely to kill that bacteria now after adding a UVB lamp to Chloe's enclosure and adding a heater to their water everything is finally complete and I'll add the light and heater later this video is just long enough we're going to add some live plants these this is horn work from my aquarium upstairs and this is a free-floating plant so you don't have to let it take root or you don't have to push it underneath the sand or gravel so it just floats around and since it's up near the surface of the water the UVB light above sure to help it grow like a weed and the turtles can munch on this if they want and even if they don't it's still great for water quality because any live plant will help break down nitrites into nitrates and it kind of just makes a little environment in the take itself plus it makes the tank just look nice too alright so yeah then other than a heater this tank is done as well as this tank and hers after the UVB so thanks again for watching the transition of these three turtle tanks they are certainly liking it it's actually been about a week and they have all gotten used to how to use the basking platforms and the stink are really enjoying their mention of a cage there's one that likes to hide under that driftwood but I don't see it right now anyway thanks for watching we'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Snake Discovery

Views: 2,782,904

Rating: 4.8602953 out of 5

Keywords: turtles, aquatic turtles, turtle tank, setting up turtle tank, turtle enclosure, painted turtle, softshell turtle, stinkpot, musk turtle, mud turtle, snapping turtle, map turtle, how to setup turtle tank, stink pot turtle, pets, reptiles, animals, pet turtle

Id: 8EtYi98y36Q

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 13 2018