- Hey hey, good morning everybody (upbeat music)
and welcome to the blog Reptile Army.
Hope the start of your day is amazing,
you know every day we come in
and we look at these Albino turtles.
Remember when we got 15 baby Albino Red Ear Sliders
well they are over here at the office of BHB
and everyone here just gets a kick out of them.
I mean they're always just swimming around,
the eat like crazy, they do so well
and we thought, as much as they are doing
great over here.
We need to get them over to The Reptarium
because they are so absolutely amazing I know kids
are going to love them.
- The problem we're having is we are literally out of
space to bring stuff over. Every exhibit is filled up,
as of a matter, we need that expansion to happen,
because we're running out of stuff and you'll
notice over the next couple weeks even we're getting
some more animals for the expansion, right.
But for now we got to do something for these turtles,
so what I think we're going to do is we're going to
put them right here and kind of make a new exhibit.
So basically what I'm going to do is head to Home Depot buy
two by fours. Like I always do.
I'll make a stand, then I'll get some universal rock,
make it look really cool,
then I have to break down that enclosure.
I might as well throw an undergravel filter in there as
I'm at it, so they're even filtered better.
And then we'll actually move them over here,
get them all set up,
get getting conditioned and have him here.
I think the kids are just going to absolutely love it.
Once they get a chance to see these.
They're just so darn cool.
So what do you say we head to Home Depot,
get my builder's hat back on and build a stand for these
turtles.
- And the best part about this is this a DIY, right?
I'm always building stuff.
So I'm going to take you guys along on the journey of how
simple building a stand can actually be
and how you can still
make it look really cool if you know how to do it,
you can use foam, you could use the universal rocks stuff,
you can use whatever to kind of do the facade, right?
But the actual bare bones that isn't too bad.
So let's head to Home Depot. I'll tell you what I'm getting.
I'll walk you through each step of the way.
- So we're about to head out to Home Depot to grab some
two by fours and Mike over here reminded me that, you know
when you're a builder like me and I'm always building stuff,
I always have extra two by fours. You know,
the one thing in life that you can't have too much of is two
by fours and wood screws.
That's just a little life advice for you guys.
So we have a whole stack of two by fours here,
Which saves me the trip to Home Depot. Now,
what I want to do is I have to make a 30 by 12 inch base,
right? That's what the tank is going to actually sit on.
So I want the top to be 30 by 12,
and I want a bottom base to be 30 by 12.
And then we'll build the support from there
about 24 inches high,
so let's go ahead and get cutting some wood.
(upbeat music)
- [Brian] So now we have the top
and the bottom where the tank is
actually going to sit on, right?
So now I want to make it 24 inches tall,
so what I'm going to do is cut some 24 inches of boards here
to actually nail on so that the height is there,
and then I'll talk to you about the support because let's
face it.
Support is going to be important with that much gallons of
water.
(upbeat music)
- So now that I have my 24 inch legs,
I'm basically just going to put them in here on all sides,
nailed them together, put the top on,
and then we'll talk about support. Again,
support is going to be really important cause 29 gallons
of water, I think it's six pounds per gallon.
You're looking at over 150 pounds of weight that needs to be
supported on this.
- [Brain] So what's going on here?
- Okay there's Halloween photos at The Reptarium
with animals.
- [Brian] With animals.
So this is the little set you can actually take pictures of.
- Hmm
Yourself and uh, and I guess we're
dressing our animals up.
- [Man in Black Hoodie] Yeah.
- [Brian] Like Cheeto here, so how's that work?
- I mean, that's it
you just walk in here and take a picture of Cheeto.
- [Brian] So is every hour like a different animal
or what, or is Cheeto just stays dressed up?
- It's just Cheeto.
- Just Cheeto.
- No, you get to come,
you get to pick the animal. You get to pick costume.
- [Brain] Oh you get to pick the animal.
So obviously we're open on Halloween,
so if you guys are in the area and you want to come here,
we're going to be passing out candy.
Jay's going to be in charge of your dressing them up. Right?
- Right.
- Oh yeah. Make sure he does it
cause I'm not doing it,
but a Cheeto looks amazing. I think he's a cowboy.
There you go, bud.
All right, so come visit us on October 31st Halloween,
get yourself in candy, dress up,
we're going to have an absolute bash here at The Reptarium.
(water rushing)
- Hi guys.(laughing)
So next thing we're doing is, Brian is.
- Like you want some of these shirts.
Children learn from what they see need to set an example of
truth and action.
- [Mike] That's some what true.
- [Man In Green Shirt] Did you know that it's
national reptile awareness day?
- I know, go check out The Reptarium on Instagram.
We just made a video.
As you guys know Brian's building that turtle tank stand
for this turtle tank.
So we're going to move all these red ear sliders right next
door. So I'm going to go through, get all the turtles,
put them into here so they don't get wrecked around stuff
then we're going to drain some of the water,
unplug everything, take it next door and set it up.
Get them back to The Reptarium. Let's do this.
(upbeat music)
- So basically, this is the height of all the stand
but right now all of the weight
that would be sitting on this
it's just on these nails, right?
Well, 150 pounds,
that's not going to be good.
So what we're doing is
we're going to put some braces in here.
So that way this brace is actually holding the weight from
the ground up. That way, the stand can hold 150,
180 pounds of weight. So we have to just measure this out,
cut forest planks, put them in there,
and then the stand is done.
(upbeat music)
- [Brian] And that's it.
Basically now we have a stand, right?
The tank is going to sit up here,
but it's actually supported by this length
right down to the ground so it ca support the weight.
Obviously, it doesn't look all that spectacular right now.
That's where the fun begins, right,
now I have universal rock that I work with,
but you can do anything.
You can put like plywood on here and then foam some cool
stuff or, you know, whatever, put moss on there,
whatever you want to do to make the stand,
actually look good.
So let's take this upstairs and wrap it with universal rock
and make this thing look beautiful.
Before we bring the turtles over.
- Dude this sticker fell into
the bird eaters cage. (spooky music)
(crickets)
- [Man In Background] I'm not getting it.
- I'm getting it, I'm scared, but I'll get it.
(crickets)
(spooky music)
Uh, it seems so fast. James' stupid sticker.
(upbeat music)
- So little change a plan on the fly here. (rushing water)
I brought the enclosure up here.
Mike tore down the turtle tank over here,
which is going to go over here.
But we thought that maybe we put a
second kind of display tank
over here and maybe we'll put like Al the toad
or something like that,
where it'd be like an open top where people can just pet it
or something. Not a hundred percent sure how good plus,
I think it'll look kind of better to be flowing like this,
rather than just having one singular tank here.
So now I'm back to making some more stands.
We'll go ahead and make a stand for this tank,
which is 36 inches tall but we'll make it the same height,
and then with the universal rock will wrap, the whole thing
so it looks like one exhibit.
So hopefully it's going to look good.
In my head I think it's going to work,
so let's just go ahead and build this other stand.
(upbeat music)
- I certainly have an advantage that I can work with a
universal rock stuff, because it's so much quicker.
I'm able to wrap that all like this.
Once we get the aquariums on here and stuff like that,
it should just feel like it blends right into the entire
facade over here.
So, uh, let's go ahead and get the turtle tank out,
then we'll go ahead
and get the next tank out to see how it looks.
(upbeat music)
- All right, so we'll just have to
touch things up a little bit,
but we can actually put the turtles in here. Like I said,
I just think people are going to get a kick out of it.
They're so colorful and so interesting.
I just think it's going to be absolutely amazing. And, uh,
and now we've got Al sitting over here the big toad,
which is cool,
and I think that's going to be pretty amazing too.
So, these guys looked good over here
and I think they're going to love it.
I tell you what I, uh,
as much as I love them over at BHB,
they're going to get so much more attention over here,
and I think it's going to be really cool. And again,
remember when these guys get some size to them, you know,
maybe two and a half, three inches,
they're actually going to go into the turtle pond over here.
But for right now,
they're just a little bit too small for that.
So we've got to keep them in something like this.
It's absolutely incredible.
So I can't wait until we're open so people can see them.
I think the kids are going to love them.
- This one I know you guys have definitely seen
before, because I've had Brian hold her.
I brought her in on a number of different cases just to show
you guys the variability and the species.
And I think they're really, really beautiful, but this is
as you guys know, a Rose hair tarantula.
Now this one is my, my personal one.
I believe she's about actually 20 years old currently.
And uh, she's probably one of the, uh
probably the second or third oldest animal in here right
now. So like it's pretty, it's pretty cool.
She's always been my favorite.
She was one of my first exotic species I've ever kept,
and she's just a sweetheart, she's an absolute baby
I love her to death. She's so pretty.
Gosh, I love, I love the color on these guys.
Super underrated in my opinion,
just because they're so commonly kept in the hobby.
People don't really appreciate them as much I feel like,
but man, I love them too.
These are some of my favorite tarantulas to keep.
I mean it's, it's an interactive bug.
It's awesome. But she's going to be a great ambassador.
I'm, I'm super excited to let her
actually take zombie's place. At least, for now. I do,
I am on the lookout for another rose hair tarantula,
It's my goal here to make sure we have animals that we can
cycle in and cycle out without overstressing them or hurting
them or anything like that.
And that's always going to be important in the future,
especially with zoos,
we want our animals to be healthy first and foremost,
and then also apply some education and some inspiration
while we're at that.
- I love the fact that the turtles
are over here at The Reptarium
they're going to be absolutely loved by people.
So it's super cool to kind of just see progress.
It just gets me excited about the expansion,
you know what I mean? If you enjoyed this video,
do me a favor.
Right here's an unboxing playlist,
if you want to see me unboxing stuff.
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hit that subscription button
it would mean the world may have an absolutely wonderful day
reptile army. Remember be kind to somebody and I promise,
I'll see you in the next one.