I'm putting together a tank of turtles for display in a campground. I'm thinking 3 or 4 turtles (a map, a painted and a musk at least) all are probably less than 4". Planning on about 20-25 gal of water in the tank. I need suggestions of what type of filter I need to use and where to get it.
I'd like one that was submersible if possible. I believe that the water line will be too low to use the regular fish tank type of filter. I've looked in places like walmart and meijer but they don't seem to carry any filters like that.
Thanks for any help!
Aquatic turtles are filthy.
Really, absolutely filthy, pound for pound, ounce for ounce, they produce tremendous amounts of waste.
I have always found it a lot easier to throw a little money and a lot of common sense and planning at turtles than it is to break your back cleaning them constantly.
My first suggestion would be to go as big as you possibly can with the enclosure- and ideally to set up a sump underneath it that doubles (or better) the volume of water. The more water there is, the more spread out the waste becomes as it's released into it, the less quickly it builds to unpleasant or unhealthy levels.
Pumps or aquarium power heads can be dropped down into the tank to forcibly send water up and then out- into a sump, which itself has a pump sending it back. I'd look for a set of pumps that will turn over the water volume about ten times an hour, it's twice what's necessary for a fish tank but turtles are a lot dirtier than an equal mass of fish.
I'd put a sponge prefilter over the intake for the pump inside the enclosure, this will need to be cleaned fairly regularly but not replaced too often. Inside the sump as the water drops down, you can pass the water through some substantial filter media since you'd be dealing with room outside of the tank with the animals...
Sponge or cotton prefilters, probably some zeolite for ammonia absorbtion and activated carbon just for clarity. I generally don't bother with much biological filtration when turtles are involved, as they tend to overload it and regular, total water changes should be performed anyway.
For many of the same reasons why I don't stress the biological filter bed, I'd avoid using a substrate. While it's beneficial and even necessary for fish or most other aquatic beasties, with turtles it primarily functions as a place where waste material can be trapped outside of the filter, making it more difficult and time consuming to clean properly.
In addition to that... Pay a lot of attention to the feeding schedule and the diet proportions. Most people overfeed reptiles, especially turtles. They eat almost anytime food is present, it's an instinctive behavior because in their little reptile brains, they don't know when they'll find food again- anytime food is there, they eat it... Even when that food is far in excess of their caloric needs. The result is a lot of food passing through the turtle that they didn't need to begin with, creating a lot more waste than an appropriate feeding schedule would.
Dietary requirements shift with species, age and general health but... identify the specifics needed for the species and sizes involved and meet it without exceeding it. Fairly often people will feed a lot more fish and meaty foods than the animal really needs, while neglecting the greens- and people will often feed too much too often, little guys can get some benefit from daily feedings (or an appropriate amount) but subadult and older animals generally need a lot less, every other day, even every third day. Feed them the proper items in the proper proportions and portions... it'll make the filtration and cleaning substantially easier.
