hey everybody so before we did a video about a baby ball python setup in a 10 gallon aquarium
which you can see right here that is actually my most disliked video probably because it says baby
ball python and aquarium because there's a whole lot of people that say you should
never put a ball python in an aquarium and they do have a lot of justification for that reason
but that was also kind of why i made the video to say hey it really isn't the best of the time for
most cases but because that's how everybody really gets started here's how you can do it in a better
way so that way it's a little bit better for their own husbandry for that species specifically ball
pythons and aquariums but at the end of it i said that hey why don't we do one that is just about
maybe doing them in a tub or in a pvc setup or something like that which is a little bit more
uh if you're going the tub route a little bit more inexpensive and either way both for better keeping
in humidity and keeping in the temperatures for that so here is this video i don't actually have
a juvenile ball python to put into the particular type of tub that i chose so i went with our male
therai king snake or variable king snake and the reason for that is because in all honesty king
snakes are pretty forgiving and can kind of adjust to a lot of different things though those are more
kind of like a little bit more of an arid dryer species so they can tolerate a little bit more
higher temps because that's the room that he set up in which is our kind of air dryer hotter room
so the basically the whole thing still applies only we will just tweak it a little bit of how we
actually set it up so here's how we go starting with a hefty 113 quart locking tub that we're
going to use for this we're using it for the thera king snake we used it for another recent edition
that we'll show off in another video really soon as well as this i think is a really great choice
for specifically a snake that's up to probably around his juvenile sub adult and maybe even a
small adult male ball python because for a couple reasons number one it's super super clear number
two it has four locking lids so it's pretty much escape proof for most snakes out there there's
two on the middle of the longer side and there's one on both ends like you would see normally it
also is pretty tall so you can allow climbing branches really thick substrate arboreal perches
and even enough room to what we're going to do put on an actual uvb light because we're going
to make a bioactive tub and you can do that for a ball of python too okay so first things first
is we're gonna use a soldering pen to uh put a hole in the top of it that we're gonna use for
our dome light that we're gonna put in a uvb bulb because we're gonna have the live plants in there
uh so you can pick up a soldering pen from any like feed store or tractor supply home
depot or just for even from amazon i'll also put some holes in the side for more air ventilation
because we measured the top of the dome light and the hole that we're going to put in won't allow
for two too much airflow so we're going to use the same pen to do that for the sides make sure if you
do use a soldering pen to put holes into whatever it is you're using that you do it somewhere with
a lot of ventilation like outside because that melting plastic can be pretty noxious you know
what i mean so after that we're also going to do a fun little thing we're going to make an actual
burrow hopefully that will kind of reproduce something that's more similar to their natural
habitat so we're going to take this cool little paper tray that we found at target and we're
going to do the same thing we're going to use the sovereign pen to make what is essentially a little
hide out of that and i will show you exactly how we're going to set that up here in just a second
so after we have all that set up ready to go we're going to take a piece of like screen mesh like uh
like from a screen door and we're going to seal that in with a type of silicone
what i used is aquarium sealant uh you can probably get away with something a little bit
less expensive but i use that because that's what i have uh so we're gonna put a nice big solid beat
around that we're gonna make sure that i'm gonna try to make sure that it's really nice and secure
i'm trying i'm struggling a little bit with this so in the end what we're actually going
to do is take some aluminum tape kind of like what we showed in the ball python video
and we're going to use that to secure it down so the reason why we're going to use that is that
it will hold it in place while the silicone sets in and even at that point you can even remove it
just like you can remove it even if it's not going to hold up very well and then you can just trim up
the edges of the screen mesh so that way there's no little pokey bits so here is our big tub the 17
the 117 quart uh hefty tub and like i said before we're going to put in this little burrow so we're
going to start with a small layer of substrate we are using a mix of organic topsoil and
coconut coir the ground coconut we're just going to do a little bit of mix of that
it's probably going to be two-thirds top soil to one-third coconut it won't hold as much humidity
so we're going to take our little paper tray and this little plastic tube this is a pvc tube that
we also cut down with the soldering pen and we're going to pack in just a really deep layer of the
uh really deep layer the substrate so that way once it settles it'll hold the tube in place
and we'll pop it up kind of in a corner sorry for the camera angle it's really hard to do this with
a stand in one hand um and you need to uh this way when i when i do this we can have the tube for him
to have access to come in when he wants as well as the side that we're putting it on is going to be
where the uvb light will be so hopefully in the way at least i'm thinking is that you know he at
night or whenever he wants he's down underneath in the borough we can't actually see him but in the
morning when the lights come on at 7 00 am when we have the timer set for the uvb lights and for
the 12 hour light cycle in that room he will come out just like a natural a snake naturally would
and just kind of bask right above kind of where their burrow site would be it's a natural behavior
that's seen a lot and quite a few different species of snakes where they'll emerge from their
burrows and they will just kind of warm up and bask under there they don't all do it um and king
snakes are species of snake that uh well they're all a bunch of different species uh that that will
in fact bask so we're going to put a really thick layer of this substrate because it's going to be
bioactive really thick layers of substrate are very helpful it can make it so we can kind of turn
and aerate the the bedding a little bit to kind of keep it breathing and keep it living you know
in addition to this stuff we're also going to be adding some other things to this as well um so
like i said we're going to have the live plants and we're going to have these so this little guy
the first one that we're going to put in is technically a low light house plant i cannot
remember the name of it to save my life so i'll throw it up here in the video but it's going to
be on the other side of the tub that won't have the uvb directly above it because it'll still get
light but it doesn't need nearly as much and i'll also be getting 12 hours light from an open window
that we have during the day as well as lights that are also on in the room this other one is an agave
plant it's desert plants a little bit more arid i'm going to put it above uh the little burrow
that we put in there because hopefully that way when we do water them because they're live plants
we do have to water it as well as the soil needs to stay fairly humid not crazy humid because the
variable king snakes are a more desert type species of snake they don't need as much humidity
uh as compared to like a tropical species like a boa or a ball python or something like that
so i'm going to put it on top of that where it won't be able to go down as far but hopefully
that way when i water it it won't like uh you know basically drown with the water that we put
in there so we're going to put that over here in this corner and like i said where i have the lid
position that will be where the uvb bulb will be positioned right above so the agave is going to
get a lot more light than the other one but that's why we chose these two specific ones
so we're going to make sure they'll stay nice and buried so that way um snake uh king snakes won't
tear up that like a ball python or something like that would um but hopefully this will be
good uh we're also gonna throw in some leaves and some other stuff to help with the bioactive
uh setup the leaves are something for isopods and springtails to kind of munch on in addition to
uh the uh urates and poop of the king snake i'm using the bio dude leaves
big big uh big big plug for the bio dude uh they are getting very large very popular they make
great great products if you ever have a chance make sure you check out biodude uh that's i would
use that right now but they're a little bit more expensive but you know you pay for quality and i
absolutely recommend the bio dude so get can't use all of those products for this setup but i
can i'm gonna use what i can and a lot of their sales people that i met at a couple different
reptile shows were really really cool too so we also have these chunks of wood uh that i picked up
and you know you treat them kind of like you would anything else that you would pick up
so you wash them really well and then you bake them at low temps for a long time in the oven
i'm going to sprinkle those in here because it'll be something for the isos to munch on as well as
i think it gives a kind of a really nice natural look like what do you think guys like it's almost
kind of like a little bit of almost like a forest floor and then here are some giant canyon isopods
um they get a little bit bigger than like the powder blues and the powders
uh powder oranges that are the same species uh they can take a little bit drier temps overall
the powder blues and snows can do it too but i like the giant canyons they don't reproduce as
quickly but once established they're really really hardy um but because this is also a
lot of substrate and uh king snakes do kind of poop a lot because they uh they're crazy monsters
they just eat like crazy uh we're actually gonna throw some powdered blues in here too um because
like i said before the powder blues they kind of reproduce a little bit faster than the uh
giant canyons but we're gonna throw some of those in there as well as well as we're
gonna take this big old chunk of cork bark uh and we're gonna use that as his hide for the surface
so and then this uh big this big chunk of this big tree branch here that we were trimming up uh
we cut down a small tree that was growing up and we uh cleaned and baked this branch just like uh
the other little chunks of wood that we saw so my thought is that you know that cork bark is kind of
going to act like a bit of a hide or debris that you would go like if you're going out herping
those are the things that you'd be flipping and you would find the snakes out kind of in the day
so the burrow will act as something that he will be hiding in at night and when it gets
really really warm and then during the day uh he when he's out and about he'll be under that uh so
hopefully that kind of creates more naturalistic things so as you can see the lid sits right on top
uh we will anchor that in so that way it doesn't move and actually gets knocked over so what do you
guys think i think that looks pretty good fairly naturalistic here's our male uh lampropeltis
thayeri so the variable or sierra leone king snake is the milk phase or tri-color phase he
i don't know i think it looks pretty good what do you guys think it's a lot bigger than what he was
in um they don't need as much room as a lot of other species of snake but i felt kind of bad
he was in a little bit of smaller it was in a little bit of a smaller enclosure and i think
he's gonna look this he's going to really like this and hopefully he will utilize the burrow
um he immediately went under the cork bark as you can see but i bet he will uh i'm hoping what he's
gonna do is that he will be under the burrow once he learns where it is uh he will go down
there during uh during the night in the evening um trying to get him to go in there but he's just not
having it and then during the day he will be under the cork bark and cruising and moving around
there's the thick layer of substrate also if he wants to kind of nose in he can do that as well
now that the tub is all ready to go and set up for him we're going to put it up in the
spot in the room that he's going to be set up in and we'll see how that looks so here it is
all set up in its final glory where it's going to live in the arid room where we
previously lived in just a kind of an open air glass container before
so you can see there's the agave ready to go it's a little higher up as we said before so
hopefully this way when i water it won't ever worry about like stagnation or anything like that
over there that's the plant that can do with a little bit lower light so it can be not directly
under the uvb bulb as well as i kind of positioned this little burrow you can see the entrance over
there um to where i would think like kind of how it would be naturally like you know
they'll come out of their burrows in the morning to get some rays to soak it up so he'll pop out
and sit right there under where the uvb is and we'll see if that's where he's going to tend to go
and then over here this will be the cooler side it is near a window but these are really nice
insulated windows and i have not necessarily engineered this room but kept this room to where
it honestly doesn't affect it too much as long as the windows are nice and shut
so that'll be the warm side with the uvb next to the agave and he needs more light anyway and
it'll get light from the window and uvb and light from that right there and then over here we have
the little plant over there the lower light plant sorry for the finger and there's our little guy
right there so as you can see easy to do fairly inexpensive it just takes a little bit more
effort into it although to be completely honest with you guys that's kind of the fun of doing
these things is kind of putting in the extra work into their habitat so that way they can enjoy it
too so here we'll open this up so you can see i used so it's not going to go anywhere pop that up
there he is hey you hope you like it i thought i saw some ice pods crawling around here you
can't really see him right now but there we go here's where he's going to live now
what do you think you're doing what do you think you're doing you silly you silly hope you enjoyed
this video you guys so here you go this is a good example about how you can do something
like this very inexpensively it's a lot lighter weight than like an equivalent 40 gallon tank
as you can see it's got some nice size to it that's why we chose this one as we said before
so if you wanted to do this for a ball python we just changed it up a little bit um you know maybe
a few less air holes here we'd maybe widen this up here for like a uvb and a heat bulb depending
on you know your room setup and everything else like that and there you go maybe do a bigger hide
i don't know if this is necessarily the best tub i would use for a full-grown adult ball python
but you know for sub adults and juveniles probably up to around 12 to 1500 grams i think this would
be a pretty good size and as we said before there are plenty of other tubs you guys can use
if you wanted to do that not necessarily a rack system but you know a couple of
larger tubs on a rack is going to be a lot a lot lighter a lot less expensive than if
you were to do a bunch of large exoterras like our brittles over here and o'malley down there
or even uh just like actual aquarium aquariums so lighter inexpensive it just takes a little bit
more effort although as you guys saw it didn't require that much just a few more steps and a
little bit of pre-thought when it comes to it oops sorry about that hopefully you enjoyed this video
gave you some ideas about exactly what you can do as you can see it's pretty clear one that's
not you can clearly see what he's doing in there right like it's not as crystal clear
oh he's burrowing down that's awesome not as crystal clear as glass but you know pretty nice
let me know what you guys think down in the comments
any questions comments email me jzsreptiles@gmail.com stay tuned
for more updates on these guys on available snakes on possibly future merchandise or any other animal
reptile questions that you have for me hope you're having a great day and we'll catch you next time
hey everybody really quick just want to talk a little bit about maybe helping support jz's
reptiles a little bit and you can do that even by kind of getting something for yourself too
which is merchandise so hopefully for this front you know coming up this black friday
not really a sale but it'll be made available then we're going to have a few different designs
of different things and i'm going to show you really quick first of all you know the shirt that
i'm wearing really happy about this design it's going to come in a variety of different colors
in both unisex and women's so there's another one just for you know shows and tells these
we have purple teal black gray couple different colors it's going to be really cool
the other one is obviously the standard logo the jz's reptiles logo so here's another t-shirt
just nice simple keep it sweet easy but looks really good i think as well as we also have
bandanas with jz's reptiles we have masks in limited quantities available as well so
all of these one all of the t-shirts i will have different sizes in unisex women's even a few youth
tees but you know just please let me know hit me up jz's reptiles gmail.com if you're interested
we also have stickers in full color you know so we have these guys that we've had this
is the full color one that i know everything is usually black and white for those because
printing t-shirts is kind of expensive everybody we also have another really cool brand new design
for stickers that are be coming out you can see it right here so every one of these things
is made every one of the designs has been designed by a local artist here in denver so kind of helps
support local artists the shirts are printed at a local print shop so that helps you know local
print shop local business as well as hey i'm local too you support small business locals yay
so hopefully you uh you know are interested hit me up jzsreptiles@gmail.com catch you next time