Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey kids, back again. wanted to leave pictures of the filter system my friend developed for the tank. comments/opinions/suggestions/blah blah welcome. it seems to work really well, the water doesnt start looking bad until maybe 5 days between changes, i usually do about a 75% change every 5-7 days.

part 1-pump, placed under basking rocks in the far right hand corner of the tank, pumps the water to part 2...

part 2-plant area, currently housing a guppy/as-yet-unknown-breed-of-snail farm of sorts. this is where i keep the submersible heater, because the turtles kept kicking it up & i was afraid theyd break it & hurt themselves. with the constant water flow, it succesfully keeps the whole tank at around 74 degrees. the guppies were intended to be feeders but to my chagrin theyre completely ignored. the snails came free with the plants. now theyre everywhere, but supposedly theyre good so im not worried about them too much. this is also where i keep the dr. turtle block, because mikey kept trying to eat it.

anyway, this area has a pipe leading out of it, into part 3...

part 3-the bi-level bio-ball section. the bad part about the set-up is the guppies/snails get into the pipes leading to the pump/bio-ball filter & they get stuck in there, because theres no real way to get them out except rip the whole mess apart. thats a detail were going to have to work out whenever i upgrade the tank. but thats more or less it. the whole thing is really pretty effective, as far as i can tell. its been up & running since early summer, so far the only complaint i have, other than unwanted corralling of fish/snails, is if the pipe gets an air bubble caught in it it gurgles & wakes me up @ 4am. took me a week to figure out where the noise was coming from.

o yeah, one more picture...incoming...

this thing (its a shark filter, i think) really does nothing more than circulate the water to keep film off the top of the water, but the guy at the store told me i had to have one, & i was naieve & bought it...later, finding it at other stores for half what it cost me where i bought it. so im stubborn & im going to use it until it dies on me. but the turtles like to climb on it, & as long as the water & filter material is kept relatively clean, it works for eliminating film & various scum...

think i should try an algae eater as well, or do i have my bases covered?

looks a lot like a wet/dry filter. I'd suggest a lot more bio balls if you have room for them. I have a wet/dry on my 55 gallon tank, and have about 2 gallons of bioballs in it.

As for plants... I hadn't thought about putting some in my filter, but it probably would be a great idea...but I don't think I get enough light to my filter for them.

That water sprayer thing would drive me nuts. I can't stand hearing all the noise. My tanks are in my living room. The loudest thing I hear is the bubbles comming to the surface in the tanks, and a slight trickle from the filter. It's in the bottom cabinet so I can't even hear it with the TV on.