Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello, in my aquarium I am using two internal filters positioned opposite ends of the tank horizantally, I am using them to collect solid wastes from the bottom of the tank and help the external canister filter Which I use to maintain biological and chemical filtration, I have 2 juveline RES and 2 juveline Emys orbicularis now. The reason for opening this message to snappers forum; my new 4 snapping turtles will arrive soon and and I will give my turtles to a friend of mine who I trust about tuetle care, and turn my tank into a snapper tank. I will use the tank for a short time about 6 months, max 1 year till I have seperate tanks for all four turtles, I will have 2 common snappers and 2 allys, as I wrote in my previous topic I'll dvide the tank from the middle one side for commons and one side for allys.
My question is about Ýnternal filters , I'm going to change mines with news because as I know snappers need shallow water and my filters are very large for the setup that I'm planning.
And I heard snappers are very messy eaters and will pollute the water too much, Which filter should I buy?
It must be used Ýn shallow water for hatchlings, and ýt should have a good performance when used horizantally. Which internal filters are most preferred by snapper keepers?
I heard about duetto and fluval but also heard duetto is crab and duetto clogs easily, I need advice because in my country ý dont have many selection and I will take the filter from abroad via a frind of mine.
Also I wonder, can I keep 2 allys together in one side of the tank and 2 commons togerher at he other side for six months(max a year)? My tank is 50 inch long, 25 inch deep and 25 inch height.

Can you please advice me good internal filter suitable for use in shallow water (snapper hatchlings setup) depending on your experiences? I really need an advice, my snappers will arrive soon and I have to finish the preparations...

I don't use internal filters (unless you count undergravel). The only person I know who has tried them felt that they didn't work very well. A cannister filter in combination with an undergravel should work great. I haven't found snappers to be any more messy or harder to keep clean than any other type of turtle as long as you don't overfeed them.

Thanks for the reply, But I have already a canister filter That I use for my basking turtle setup , It will be too powerfull for a hatchling setup It has 400 gallon per hour flow rate and non-adjustable, I dont think if it'll be suitable for about 4" water depth.

Also, I have read many good things about an undergravel filter combined with a canister, but I dont like using substrate in the tank so I can see the waste better and heard at many forums that snappers are fond of digging and they will ruin the undergravel filter system as well as relaesing all the waste trapped within the grawel.

So I want to use good internal filters suitable for shallow water, till I can raise the water level enough for my canister filter.

I thank Gambusia for good idea but also in my country undergravel filters are very unpopular and there is no good brand even I am not sure if I can find a useless one or not..
So I'm still waiting for an internal filter advice.

I use a Fluval four plus and it works great. You may want to go with a slightly smaller one for your setup. I use substrate on the side with the turtle, then have a divider with the filter on the other side. This allows me to keep the water deep enough to run the filter without having it too deep for the turtle. as he gets bigger I can remove the divider and the substrate as the system will probably need to be cleaned more often. If you really want to have no substrate you could do a Fluval Two plus at either end and probably have pretty good luck and a lot of filtration.