- Hey, good morning everybody and welcome to the vlog.
How is your day going?
I hope it's amazing.
I tell you what,
today is the day that I've been dreaming
about since the beginning of the build,
and I know I've said that a little bit,
but this is really, truly the case.
I've said this a million times that this is the centerpiece,
this is the crown jewel.
When you walk into The Reptarium,
whether it's over there or through here,
what ever it is,
this is the enclosure that is blowing people away
and gonna continue to blow people away.
And of course that's Ivy the green anaconda's cage.
Today is the day that we're gonna actually move Ivy
into her new enclosure.
Oh my gosh, I cannot wait to see what she does.
I don't know, is she gonna be in the water,
is she gonna be on the land?
I'm not sure what she's gonna do,
but first, I'm actually gonna climb in here
and just do a little bit of a water change here.
Just to get some of that cloudiness out,
probably just drop it down four or fives inches,
kinda suck some of this debris off the bottom
that just comes from the residue from the actual polyuria
and then get this thing ready.
So let's go ahead, get some swim shorts on,
jump in here, do some clean up,
and then we get to move Ivy in.
I tell what you, guys,
I don't know what's better than moving a giant anaconda
into an even more giant cage.
The only way to clean this enclosure is to get in,
and the good news is the water's warm
'cause it's so warm in bere.
It's gonna be fun.
I think there's some swimming
with anaconda opportunities as well.
So let's go ahead and get in the water
and see what's gonna happen.
(cheerful music)
(upbeat music)
All right, all cleaned up.
You guys ready to get dried off and put Ivy in there?
Just have to fill the water up
and then we'll actually put Ivy in and see what she does.
It's gonna be amazing.
Oh, and by the way, we use a vinegar-based water solution
to clean the glass so that it's safe for animals
and stuff like that.
All right, looking good.
We'll get this wrapped up and we'll put her in.
(upbeat music)
And this is the dreams, guys.
I mean, I've been thinking about this since, you know,
going to the Saint Louis Zoo probably 15 years ago
and seeing an amazing green anaconda display
with them in the water like that.
And then recently going to the Dallas World Aquarium
and seeing a similar type habitat,
and that's kinda where the brain child kinda came from
with wanting to have a really heavily aquatic enclosure
that she could potentially crawl around in.
So I am beyond excited to see what she's gonna do.
Is she gonna be on the land,
is she gonna be in the water,
is she gonna be both?
I don't know, so let's just go ahead let Ivy go,
and sit back and admire this situation.
Okay, baby girl.
Here's your new habitat, honey.
There you go, sweetheart.
And away she goes!
Oh my gosh, she looks so good in here.
I mean, just look it with the lighting
and she looks so big.
I mean, again,
one of the things I was a little bit concerned about is,
you know, Ivy's not a huge anaconda,
and this is an absolutely huge cage.
She's gonna get huge one day
and she's gonna be able to grow into this,
but she actually doesn't look super small.
She looks pretty impressive in here.
But just look at the colors with the matching.
Again, she's gonna crawl onto the land,
I don't know if she's gonna stay on the land,
eventually go into the water, hang out there.
I'm not sure what she's gonna do.
This is absolutely insane.
I mean, just take,
I'm gonna come over here and take a look.
Okay, even from over here,
you can't see her 'cause she's behind the log a little bit,
but if you look this way, unbelievable.
Oh my gosh, look at how freaking awesome that is.
Again, she spends a lot of her time in the land
in this other habitat,
but we didn't have a water feature
that she could swim around in,
so I don't know if she's gonna utilize this
or what's gonna happen.
So, I tell you what guys, I am,
it's more than I expected.
I mean, this is the dream that I want.
We're gonna actually get some foliage,
some plants and stuff hanging down,
so it looks a little more Amazonian in here,
but I wanted to just put her in here
because I was just too excited not to.
I mean, this is it.
This is the one thing.
I mean, I was looking forward to so much stuff,
but this was definitely one of those habitats
that I could not wait to see what she was gonna do in,
so I think I'm just gonna sit back and watch her for awhile
because this is absolutely a moment I wanna relish
for a long time.
(cheerful music)
Oh my gosh, guys, she about to go in the water
for the first time.
I didn't know if she was gonna use it.
Look at her, she's just checking it out.
Oh my gosh, she's gonna do it.
Oh, that is crazy cool.
So there it is, actually submerged in the water.
This again is the exhibit that I remember seeing
at those other facilities,
where they're in the water like that
where you can see 'em underneath water.
Oh my gosh, she looks so amazing
and of course the water's gonna clear up a lot
over the next couple weeks.
This is insane.
This is beyond my wildest dreams how awesome this is.
(cheerful music)
And Ivy is back up on the land.
I tell you, this is amazing, she is all over the place.
She's curled up all over the log,
she's been in the water,
now she's a landaconda, right,
because she's just hanging out on the land (laughs).
I don't know,
once she gets settled in and really gets used
to the entire enclosure if she's gonna spend more time
in the water or more time on land.
Maybe both, I hope she splits it a little bit both,
you know, because it's amazing,
but right now she's just so mentally stimulating
with this absolutely mammoth cage
that has the water feature and stuff like that.
This is incredible.
I love the fact that she seems to be loving her new habitat
and I'm glowing inside, guys.
I mean, this is amazing.
I've been dreaming about this for so long.
I can't believe this actually happened,
and I have to share it with you guys because this,
dreams do come true, guys.
It's hard work, a lot of hard work,
but my gosh, dreams do come true.
I gotta run to my favorite store to go get hay.
(dramatic hip-hop music)
The thing I love about this store is
you can get cherry salsa, roasted garlic pasta,
and Monkey Butt all in the same aisle (laughs).
Oh my gosh, guys, come on, come on, guys, come on.
You gotta see this, man.
Oh, look it.
Oh my gosh, come here little chicky-chick.
Ooh, I love it.
Thank gosh Verde doesn't eat these anymore
'cause they're so cute.
I was so sad that we had to feed these off to Verde.
Look at how cute these things are.
Oh my gosh.
I love this time of year, they're so cute.
That's why I love coming to this store, right,
you can always find cool stuff.
(upbeat music)
It's a sap sack holder.
A sap sack holder.
I'm not sure what that means (laughs).
(upbeat music)
Back to the shop.
Exciting day, all kinds of cool stuff going on.
The fish spas that are gonna go right here,
you know, I'm super excited about this one.
We're actually gonna head off to my buddy Steve Bashsea
at Bashsea Aquatics and see what he's got going on.
He's been working on putting them together,
so hopefully, he'll have something to show me.
Let's go ahead, hit the road,
and go see his pretty awesome place.
We made it to Bashsea's place.
It's crazy, I mean, this is his fish gallery here,
but, wow, it's amazing.
But we're going in to see my fish spas.
This place is awesome.
I mean, look at how amazing this is,
just is all fish stuff.
Acrylic, got skimmers and life support over here,
and we're alone in this place.
I don't know if there's anyone else here.
Oh, there's somebody.
Look who it is.
There he is.
- Don't do it. - It's the man.
The Bashsea!
What's up, brother?
- What's going on?
- What's up, dude?
How are you, man?
All right, so you're gonna be able to see through them, no?
- No. - No (laughs).
So these are the fish spas, guys.
Steve just put these together for me kind of.
It just gives you an idea of what they're gonna,
is this the top then?
- [Steve] That's the top.
- Okay, so this is the top. - Yeah, here's the logo on it.
- Okay, oh, it's got The Reptarium.
Oh my gosh, look, it's got The Reptarium logo.
So essentially what's gonna happen
is there'll a chair back here, a seat back here.
The filtration will be on the backside, right,
is that the idea? - Exactly, yeah.
Or hidden here.
- Yeah, so it'll be hidden underneath the seat.
- [Steve] Yeah.
- So essentially this is all acrylic here.
- [Steve] All clear.
Yep, and so the seat will be back here,
filtration will be back here, all that type of stuff.
Seat is up here, feet go in here and that's the fish spa,
so that's pretty cool.
So this is how they're looking.
They look cool, dude.
Thank you, man.
- Yeah, no problem, man. - This is dope, dude.
This is awesome.
- I overbuilt them as usual
'cause it's going into ridiculous.
- I like it.
- They're gonna be sweet. - You gotta over kill.
You gotta overkill, that's sweet, dude.
(upbeat music)
♪ Hey ♪
- Just talked to Steve about the game plan here.
I mean, first off, you know,
obviously everything's gonna be sanded and smoothed.
Steve does things next level.
I mean, look around, he's an artist.
I mean, it's pretty amazing,
so I obviously clear here.
We've got black bottoms,
black top with The Reptarium logos over here.
We're gonna actually do a graphic in the back there,
and then we decided,
rather than doing like a canister filter thing,
we're actually gonna do a sump in the back
that will also have the UV sterilizers on it
'cause, obviously, you want no bacteria
to be getting from person to person.
So they'll be UV sterilizers, charcoal,
sump pump in the back.
These will be relatively close together.
The seats will be right up here in the back over here.
They'll be a little step up here,
so this is gonna look so good.
I mean, I tell you what, guys,
this is gonna be next level.
I'm so excited about it,
so hopefully within, you know, about maybe two weeks
or something like that,
we'll be installing these guys
so that we're ready for the grand opening
'cause I really wanna have these running
when we have the grand opening on the 13th.
So looking good,
I'm getting out of here and getting back to the shop
and getting back to work.
We actually see a little egg here
from our translucent veil chameleon right here.
You can see this little egg.
Of course, she's not been in with a male,
so these would be infertile.
Now, when veil chameleon females lay eggs,
it can sometimes be a problem if they don't have a male.
They can get dynocia or egg bound,
and potentially they could die.
So I'm not gonna mess around too much.
I just wanna see if I can find her
and see if she's actually laying her clutch,
but the thing is,
she's obviously so buried in here,
I don't even know where she's at.
To be honest with you,
I don't know where she could possibly be.
I mean, she's like literally disappeared,
so I think what I'm gonna do is
leave her alone
'cause I'm assuming she's buried in the bedding
to where I can't even see her.
Now, I don't want to disturb her
'cause if she's halfway through laying eggs,
again, she could egg bind.
So I'm just gonna go ahead, put this plant back in here,
leave it alone, come back later,
and see if I can find her
and see hopefully she will have laid her whole clutch.
Now that tells me we get her in with Raul
and she'll lay another clutch
that hopefully will be fertile
and maybe we'll get some baby veils.
That would be absolutely incredible,
but for now she's probably buried in the bedding here,
hopefully laying eggs.
I'm just gonna leave her alone.
Excited to get this in.
This is actually our massage table
for the Snake Massage Room,
and I'm gonna just put this together,
see how it fits in there.
That'll give us an idea of really
what kind of movement we can do in there,
and then I'll even explain
'cause some people have said, "What is a snake massage?"
So I'll kind of explain that,
but for now, let's go ahead, put this together,
and see how it fits in there.
(upbeat music)
All right, so the snake massage room.
To explain, these are gonna be the snakes.
Probably mid-sized boas, you know, five to six foot.
We have some over at BHP, gonna come over here,
and then these are gonna be smaller snakes
like ball pythons and corn snakes.
Basically what happens is you lay down face first,
you got the little thing here
and of course we'll have clean linen on each one, right.
You lay down there, we take the boas out,
about three of them,
and you let 'em crawl all over your back,
you know, so you do this back
and you're all over yourself like that.
After a while, you turn over, face up on your back,
and you have the snakes crawl all over your chest
and all over your body and stuff like that.
These are those kinda mid-sized boas,
you know, maybe 12, 15 pounds, something like that,
and you just feel the angulation
and kinda that snake massage thing, right.
And then this is the kicker,
we put those big snakes back,
and then you lay on your back face up,
we take out the small snakes
and we let 'em crawl on your face and neck
and all that type of stuff.
So that is a snake massage.
We'll show you more as we get going,
but now that we have the massage table,
it's kind of officially the Snake Massage Room.
Ivy is looking amazing.
She was all over this whole enclosure.
Now she's just hanging out in the back.
I don't know what's gonna happen,
but I am blown away about how awesome this is.
Thank you so much for watching today.
I hope that you're continuing to enjoy the expansion.
Remember, March 13th is the weekend that we open up.
It's gonna be absolutely amazing.
Cannot wait to share that with everyone that comes to visit.
You guys may know that I started a podcast channel,
it's called "Checking In."
You can actually subscribe to that right here.
Over here you can run through a whole playlist
of a bunch of cool stuff.
Subscribe to the vlog channel on this one.
Turn those post notifications on.
Have an absolutely wonderful day.
Be kind to someone, and I promise,
I'll see you guys tomorrow.