Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i'm building a new cage for my CWD and am looking for some advice on a water filter for the 100 gal pond i'm going to install. the goal of the enclosure is to be as mantinence free as possible, i dont want to have to drain the pond at all. i plan on having several fish in the pond (some of which can be eatin) which feed off the CWD feecies. From what i understand ammonia is generated by the CWD which would kill the fish and be harmfull to the CWD over time. i had also heard something about a certain type of bacteria that would keep the amonia levels down?
as an added twist to the system, i'm lookin to pump the water about 5 feet away and 4 feet up to a waterfall which will empty back into the 100gal pond, if there are any filters that could manage to work as a pump, it'd save a bit of space being that i wouldent have to set up a seperate system for the waterfall. anyways, thanks in advance

A canister filter might work, I have a fluval 404 for my turtle tank. The problem would be as it gets clogged the flow would get weaker and may not be strong enough to keep the water going uphill. You would probably have to clean it often. A wetland filter would be pretty much maintenance free, but takes a lot of time to get working properly. I can post more about the wetland filter system if you are interested.
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i'll look into that canister filter, thanks for the input
how do these wetland filters work?

The basic idea is that you have two ponds. One for the dragons to use, and one to act as your filter. In the filter pond you layer bio material such as lava rocks on the bottom, then a grate, and top it off with some moss and plants. You then use a pump to circulate the water from one pond to the other. In my setup, I had the dragon pond inside of the filter pond, so it overflowed into the filter and just had to be pumped back up. The key is that the two ponds must be the same size, or the filter pond must be larger than the other pond, or the balance will never work out. Anyway, once the bacteria is established, you should only have to add fresh water to the system to allow for evaporation. This was my first attempt at it, I am not sure how successful it was, because I only had it running for a few weeks before I had to get rid of my dragons. The outside pond was a bit too small, but you get the idea.

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Mine has been running maintanence free for about 6 years and supports three adults. The idea is to replicate how water is filtered in the wild. It combines elements of biological filtering and wetdry.

np