I need help with turtle setup ASAP

[kathryn]

Hi, anyone know of a good site for all things turtles? Specifically aquatic turtles. Or maybe someone here can help me out?

I have a 60 gallon tank that I bought cheap from a pet shop that was closing down. I have been using a submerisable filter and have been through 2 already and I'm not liking them at all. I work at a petstore and discussed this with our small animal girl, and she wasn't totally sure what I should do. My tank is NOT a turtle tank with the cut out sides like by Zoomed, so I am trying to hang a regular fish filter on the side. It fits and all.. but

1. I need the piping to be longer so the water level is not so high.
2. The water coming down from the filter is making a splashing noise (durrr).. ideas on what I can do?


I just need general help with the set up. For ages now my turtle has been in a completely barren tank and I'm tired of looking at it's ugliness and am trying to upgrade it a bit. He's quite happy now with the water level being so high but it's not going to work out that way. I have the light and heater and all that already.

If anyone can help me out here, I will post some pictures of specifically what I am talking about and if not anyone know a good turtle forum?

 

[T-ReXx]

If you post some pics I can probably give you some ideas. Aquatic turtles produce a lot of waste so generally you want a combination of a powerful particulate filter and a bioactive one. Generally a combination of a good quality submersible with an undergravel does the trick for most species depending on the size of the tank and number of occupants. Another good trick is to feed in a different container; a lot of the waste produced is from mess made while eating/uneaten food.

There's not much you can do about the water noise, that type of filter is meant to be used in a full tank and that's what prevents the noise. Positioning rocks/a log directly under the flow might help reduce it. As far as extending the piping best bet is to go to Home Depot, get a piece of rubber hose slightly larger in diameter than the intake pipe(measure it) and a pipe clamp and extend it that way.

 

[kathryn]

http://img689.imageshack.us/i/photo02092032.jpg

http://img841.imageshack.us/i/photo020920321.jpg

http://img822.imageshack.us/i/photo020920322.jpg

helpp please xD I'm willing to invest some money into it now that I have a bit of extra money this month. I just don't know how to rig all the stuff up properly. My uncle is willing to help with fixing things too, like we are going to need to cut a slot in the screen lid to accomondate the filter.

I still have the submersible one too. And here is the stuff I have for the tank equipment wise

http://www.tetra-fish.com/sites/tetrafish/catalog/productdetail.aspx?id=1276&cid=908

http://zoomed.com/db/products/EntryDetail.php?SearchID=3&DatabaseID=2&EntryID=167

http://zoomed.com/db/products/Entry...6MjoiMjYiO3M6ODoiU2VhcmNoX3kiO3M6MjoiMTciO30= (100watt)


http://www.zoomed.com/db/products/E...6IjIiO3M6ODoiS2V5d29yZHMiO3M6NjoiZmlsdGVyIjt9 (what I have been using)

and the filter I just bought as recommended by my friend that works in the small animal section where i work

http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Power-Filter-150gph-Tanks/dp/B000N31ASU


So yeah, I have a lighting system already, and I have the turtle tank heater.. but It's just how to rig up a filtration system that doesn't suck is all I need to do.

The underwater ones seriously did nothing and got jammed all the time. I know this may sound crazy but my turtle is NOT even messy! He's actually a very good turtle and eats what I put in there for him and the tank generally stays FAIRLY clean, but the filter jammed 99% of the time even with a tiny bit of food stuck to it. We spend more time cleaning the filter than the filter spends cleaning the tank!

All suggestions welcome

 

[T-ReXx]

Ok I have some suggestions.

First off scrap that older filter. It's a basic sponge and isn't big or powerful enough for that size tank. You can use the Liberty filter you're just going to have to make some modifications.


Since you're using a lid you don't have to worry about the turtle climbing structures and escaping so here's what I would do. Get some good sized slate tiles, most garden stores have them for garden ponds. Get some silicon sealant that is safe for use in fish tanks(petstore should have it). Get enough slate to build a "staircase" up to the outtake of the filter. Stack the slate in a staircase fashion and silicon it together piece by piece until you reach the bottom edge of the filter outtake. Slate breaks pretty easily so you should be able to break down pieces to fit the size you want. This will create a "waterfall" that should solve your noise problems and also give you a nice look to the tank.

Next, go to home depot, get a piece of rubber hosing that is slightly larger in diameter than the outtake(I'd say 1.5 in should be about right) and a metal hose clamp. Attach the hose to the outtake with the clamp and seal it with a line of silicon to make it water tight. Run the other end of the hose to the bottom of the tank(you can put it under the slate to keep it anchored) and cut to length. This extends your filter intake so it reaches the bottom of the tank.

Add some live plants. Plants help break down waste and improve water quality and the turt can much on them. Cheap, safe ones like Duckweed, Anacharis and Sword Plants look good and are cheap to replace once they get fully eaten. I'd consider adding a couple of cheap fish like goldfish as well. They can act as a cleanup crew for uneaten food and the turtle will enjoy hunting them down one by one.

Other than that, your best bet is to keep thing simple. Turtles produce a lot of waste and complicated setups are often a pain to maintain. What's in there already combined with the slate tower I mentioned and some plants should look nice and still be easy to keep clean with regular filter maintainence and a partial water change every other week or so. Feeding outside the tank would stretch those water changes even farther; once a month or so.

Hope that helps.

 

[kathryn]

Thanks!! Yeah the old filter really did nothing.. it was good to circulate the water when it wanted to work. I'll see what I can rig up tomorrow. I need to do some changes to my leopard gecko tank anyways, so I'll see what I can get together.
edit

btw- some people have suggested I just get rid of the screen lid and whatnot anyways, but just for the record I have 12 indoor cats and their safety is my top priority. In the time that I spent cleaning out the tank today, 2 different cats almost fell in several different times.

 

[kathryn]

Okay, I did what you suggested with adding the tubing to lower the water level, and I guess the pump doesn't have enough suction so it's not working now I'm trying to mess with it but it just keeps sucking up too much air, and I tried making the pipe air tight, but still not enough suction.

 

[T-ReXx]

If it's sucking up air it's not an airtight seal. The intake of the tube should be below water level and there shouldn't be any exposure of the extended tube to air so it should only be sucking up water. How much silicon did you use and how long did you let it cure for? I believe the problem is you need a tighter seal.

 

[M_surinamensis]

They don't operate on suction. You can't really suck on a liquid, it lacks tensile strength. They are gravity fed, the combination of lower pressure inside the intake tube is what allows the weight of the water above the point of intake to push down on the water below it-forcing some up the tube. Too little water above the intake point and too long a tube and it stops functioning.

Definitely check the seals, but in my experience the major problem using a hang on the back box filter for a turtle tank is going to be the depth of the water and length of the intake tube.

Canister filters would be my recommendation, if you're unable or unwilling to make something overflow fed with a lower point of intake (requires drilling and cutting the back or bottom of the tank, something that is difficult for most people to do, especially with a tank made of tempered glass). Canister filters are still gravity fed but they create lower pressure than a box filter does and you have a great deal more leeway with where the intake point is relative to the surface of the water.

 

[kathryn]

Here's what it looks like so I can explain better-
http://img24.imageshack.us/i/photo02111347.jpg

This is mainly how my mom rigged it up, and I've tried to adjust it. Actually, it's flowing quite fine now after I made some adjustments.

I took the aquarium tubing and connected it to the intake tube... we didn't need any sealant or anything, it was sooo tight a fit it took alot of effort just to get it together. Then, the original piping we shoved up the end of the clear tubing. It's doing much better now, because the way I had it before was I was attaching the clear tubing to the very end of the piping, and it wasn't an airtight seal and wasn't working.

So, now by using the tubing in the middle, it's airtight and is flowing properly.... once I totally figure out how I'm going to work it I'm going to stick some sealant on there just to be sure.


I tried idea about the water fountain, but it didn't work. I originally was going to do the slate idea since I have a TON of slate in my backyard from the previous owner who never used it for a walkway or something, but the lovely NJ snow had it all buried. So, I went with the pile of unused bricks. I sanitized them and washed them off and stacked them in there, and at first it kind of worked but once I got the filter going a bit better it really was still making too much noise even when I had all the bricks stacked to the very top of the tank under the filter... and it started to look ridiculous and I was afraid my turtle was going to end up tipping the tower over before I had a chance to secure it so I'm going to try getting a piece of plexiglass and rigging it up underneath the filter on an angle in order to have the water from the filter run down the plexiglass silently to the water.


This is all too complicated! LOL! I had a Penn Plax Cascade Canister filter before and it did diddly-poo too.. It just clogged all day >_<

 

[T-ReXx]

Glad you worked out the filter. Welcome to the wonderfully complicated world of water turtles. Exactly why I no longer keep them, it's a pain.

A plexiglass "chute" should work if you can rig it right. The main cause of the noise is the water hitting the pool so guiding it down, with slate, rocks, driftwood, plexiglass or whatever should solve or at least lessen the noise.

 

[kathryn]

ta-da! hahaha. Thanks for all your help!!

 

[Irish Stout]

Cool

Great looking tank. My sister has two turtles aswell and we have had filter probs and such so I'm definitely glad I stumbled upon this thread.