this is my chunky snapping turtle Bowser and this is his brother balazar and in today's video I set up a brand new enclosure for them which was a major upgrade to their little tub where I kept them since they were little baby hatchlings and for those of you that don't know I collected the snapping turtle eggs from a nest in my front yard that had been ravaged by a predator and I took in and kept two of these babies and they've just grown to these absolute monsters and it was finally time to give them a major upgrade before I get into the video I want to let you guys know that our beloved Mr Clean has passed away so this did happen a little bit ago but this is the first long video since his passing um it's something that I saw coming but it's actually something that affected me pretty emotionally um so I just want to say rest in peace to Mr Clean so I actually decided to use this 120g tank that I had my Red Cap goldfish in so the first thing I had to do was evict the redcap Goldfish sorry guys little dude you're late on your rent we're evicting you from your home find another place to stay D bye-bye Mr labotomy it's time for another labotomy The Next Step was draining the tank water to around half its original height because I want to have an outside of water basking area for the snapping turtles to go around in and be on dry land when they want and speaking of dry land I decided to go and hunt for a big slate Rock and that's going to be the platform on which they can be dry on and bask gone and I remembered I had all these slate rocks that just came with my property so I took my wheelbarrow all the way out there and started measuring and I think I found the perfectly fitted slate Rock for this project so this is going to be 28 in long so this is going to take up over half the length but less than half the less than the entire width but this will be a good large basking area for oh my gosh this thing's freaking heavy this thing's heavy o oi here I'm wondering if for the entrance ramp should I have another piece of slate that they can climb up onto I think I may need I think I may need a piece of slate like that what do you guys think would this be good I'll put a brick at the bottom to support it and they could climb their way up that just might work okay so I think these two slate pieces should work I'm also going to need to get bricks which I have in my yard um and let's build this Turtle enclosure so after Wheeling the slate rocks all the way back to my house I don't know why I put them so far away I went to my backyard and I went to the big brick pile this property just came with bricks and rocks and wood and really just comes with a bunch of resources that I regularly need which is nice um so I just started picking out all very even you know normal size bricks and I decided I'm going to use these bricks uh to support the platform up um I'm hoping that the weight is not too much for the glass tank it is very thick glass so I think it should be fine I built this Snapper tank Brick by Brick we're taking buckets of bricks downstairs this is what the turtle platform is going to rest on yeah let's not fall now oh my gosh I decided to arrange the bricks in a way that would allow the snapping turtles to swim underneath the platform and hide and also to have the platform be more near the back wall of the tank so they could swim a little bit in the front wall area and I could see them there okay I'm dripping sweat I'm carrying this massive slate Rock I hope it doesn't crack the glass I'm going to have to care whoa I'm going to have to carefully lower this thing in to the tank while bending over the tank this thing is really really heavy okay so carefully lowered okay obviously the water level is too high but I'm still going to add a ramp and I'm going to add rocks in the bottom once I add all that I'll take the water level down a bit after I added the ramp it was then time to add our large Stones now I got these stones from Home Depot they're like River Stones I did wash them as thoroughly as I could in a wheelbarrow before putting them in a bucket and bringing them downstairs now the thing is even though I washed them very thoroughly as soon as I dumped them in the tank the water became super cloudy and honestly anytime you add a substrate to a tank for the first time the water's going to be cloudy you just need to give it time for the sediment to settle down the filters to filter it out and pretty soon it gets [Applause] clear got a got to let that come down smoothly after we got our rocks in it was then time to bring our water level down to the appropriate level and then I had this canister filter on this tank for the red caps and I decided to put it back on the tank and almost use it as like a little waterfall or little water circulation kind of thing so I'm deciding to suck up water from one side and have it pour out over onto the rocks on the other side to to kind of give it a little bit of a waterfall like feel also got these plants from Home Depot I'm going to be taking them out of the pot washing the dirt and then having them sit in rocks being semi submerged uh getting some plants in the turtle tank so to be honest I'm not 100% sure if these will grow well being just rocks and water um but I have had success with other random house plants just you know being submerged in nutritious water or even just having the roots touch that so I wash away all the dirt I put them in pots with rocks and I let them sit um at least on a surface that has some water so this this one slate rock is going to have water pouring over it um and that's going to hopefully touch the bottom and through capillary action these roots are going to get some water now I am going to put some other slate rocks on top of here and those are going to be dry completely dry slate rocks for for the turtles to go on so they'll be perfectly dry rocks semi-wet rocks and then the water and now our brand new turtle enclosure is finally complete we got some gravel in here we got a dry space for our Turtles to go up on we got a lot more swimming space I really think they're going to love it so let's grab our Turtles and let's put them in their new home come here buddy come here Bowser you're about to enter your brand new home this is like over double the size of your previous home there you are buddy there you are what do you think M how do you like your little mini waterfall how do you like your little waterfall dude isn't that nice isn't that a lot more space for you just don't get stuck in any Corners now don't don't get stuck in any corners don't worry balazar I didn't forget about you little buddy don't worry balazar balazar it's time for your brand new home oh Bowser just went under it's time for your brand new home look at it no no you can't get out that way D dude you you can't get out that way no no no no that's a waterfall thought you like it guys I I'm I'm getting the idea that balazar is not the biggest fan of the this immediate change but I think there you go look at that isn't that nice oh look at look at Bowser over here look at big Bowser over here wow we can sign we can finally see you side profile Bowser and my goodness have you gotten large guys look at this they're hugging each other and kissing each other right in oh never mind we just got Bowser here I also do have Guppies so I just scooped up a bunch of Guppies we're going to be adding these to the snapping turtle tank now why are we doing this well these are going to be a self replicating food source for the Snapping Turtles um that's actually the original reason why I even bought Guppies was so that they would you know there would be food for the turtles but they were kind of fast for the turtles when the turtles were small hopefully now they actually are able to catch these guys and it'll provide some good stimulation for them kind of just exploring around in there are you trying to eat a rock oh here he comes here comes the Bowser wow look at him look at him go isn't he Majestic everybody he's got a big head he's got a really big head hi you buddy you like your new home you like your new home will Bowser wow now as much as I'm loving this new snapping turtle setup and I believe the snapping turtles are loving it as well it will not last that long if you guys don't know already snapping turtles grow very large um so pretty soon I would say maybe sometime within the next year they will definitely outgrow this tank and they're going to need a bigger tank and eventually I'm going to have to put them into the massive 300 gallon tub that I have in this basement but until then I'm going to be enjoying some side view footage of these guys and just being able to see them from the side I feel like it just it's it makes it a lot more fun of an experience also if you want to support this Channel and get yourself an amazingly cute little plushie consider pre-ordering the little dumpy plushy these should be available to ship sometime in September