Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently purchased an Eheim Classic. I was using a Fluval 4 in my 75 gallon tank, with 1 turtle. I installed the Eheim on December 27th and my water is smelling already and it doesn't look clear. I did have to do a lot of water changes with the Fluval 4, but the water NEVER smelled. I thought by purchasing a bigger filter I would have crystal clear water with no smell, at least for longer than a month.

What is going on??? Any ideas?
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"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals"
--Immanual Kant

well i have a feeling you were relying too much on your filter, turtles by nature are not the cleanliest of creatures. I have a 70 gallon tank and still do water changes every 2-3 weeks. Also what kind of enviroment do you have? do you have gravel on the bottom? Gravel can trap bacteria and odors. When you do your water changed do you completly empty the tank and clean everything in the tank? It is required to do majior cleanings once in a while. Hope this helped anyother question feel free to ask.

Well what's with some of these people talking about water changes every 3-4 months? I just don't understand why it is starting to smell bad so quickly. Like I said, I had a Fluval 4 only for about 1.5 years and NEVER had that smell, and that filter was hardly enough for the tank. I still did water changes every 3 weeks, but like I said, it NEVER smelled. Also, in the tank I have a few large rocks and absolutely no gravel, just a clean bottom. Any ideas?
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"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals"
--Immanual Kant

Just out of curiousity do you have any snails? I had a snail die in my tank once and the water got foul really fast! Normally I only do a total water change once a year.
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A mans got to do what a mans got to do. A woman has to do what he can't.

Mom to:

1 little boy born 7/19/04
2 male RES, born 1999
1 ribbon snake, age unknown
3 FBT, ages unknown
1 female bearded dragon, born 5/2002
1 male lab mix, born 5/24/03
1 female calico cat, born 6/7/04

No I do not have any snails in the water.
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"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals"
--Immanual Kant

i know that one thing you could do to have the 'smell' go down in your tank is to feed the turtles in a separate container. this is what i do, and it cuts down the waste and the dirty water GREATLY! i just fill up a small container with water and put my turtles in there to eat and crap, then i put them back into their tanks... and it's been crystal clear ever since!
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~ Evie

Pets:
RIP 0.1.0 German Shepherd {Dusty}
0.1.0 German Shepherd/Collie mix {Shadoe}
0.0.2 RES turtles {Booger & Snot}
1.0.0 African Clawed Frog {Bingo}
0.0.2 Snail {Gary & Larry}

Actually the problem will resolve itself in time. I suspect that you had biological medium in the old filter (like those ceramic beads) and you removed that from the when you changed filters. The biomedium needs to build up the necessary bacteria on it which converts the turtle waste to nitrates. If this bacteria is offset then the ammonia builds up in the water until the bacteria can catch up.

Normally I keep the old filter running for several weeks along with the new one to allow this build up to happen and make the transition into the new filter work well.

I would do partial (1/3) water changes once a week until the the odor starts to subside.

Steve

Thank you for the advice. However, I had a Fluval 4, which just has those foam-like pads and I changed the pads, so I didn't have any kind of biological medium in the tank.
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"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals"
--Immanual Kant