# Fish and Turtle Tanks



## calisphere (Oct 25, 2011)

Mshill and I were sort of stealing the "How Many Rats/Rodents Do You Have" thread, so I thought we should probably move it on over to a different thread. The basis of the conversation was turtle tanks and fish. I'm considering getting a very very large tank, either a stock tank for livestock or building a plywood fish tank, for my two aquatic turtles and Mshill has been kind enough to share about the huge turtle herd they have (forgive me, but I don't know if your name is Ms Hill or supposed to be pronounced Mitchell, I'm a dork when it comes to pronouncing usernames).

At last round, I mentioned that I was considering a 500-2000 gallon tank for the two turtles that would include fish, either koi or feeder guppies/minnows, and plants along with the two turtles. Mshill has suggested that I do feeders if I insist on putting the fish in, though two turtles don't really need that much space unless they are huge turtles. The reasoning behind this is because even if the turtles don't eat the fish, they will probably still try to take a bite or so out of them. We also were beginning to discuss filtration, so onward we go!



I'm still in the planning stages with all my future tank building. My turtles are currently in a 75 gallon together and I just discovered that my filter died on me. I was hoping that it would behave until the next reptile show so I could save $20 on a new one. It's not a bad little filter seeing as I typically feed out of the tank in a special container just for the aquatics to eat and swim in while I scrub down the tank every week. I had an algae bloom, which I didn't mind so much as it stopped a lot of Fish's swimming along the glass (turtles are named Fish and Fin, I named my animals like i'm two). I've since lost the algae and miss all that pretty green. It was the harmless stuff that grows out of too much sunlight and started to die after I moved the tank. I know my oscar cichlid's tank was terrible on that icky slimy brown algae from his food. I could scrub down his tank every day and still have some growing. I actually think the silly fish was producing it in a hidden factory or something. ;D

As for the future filtration system, I plan on having a filter capable of turning 25% of the water every hour unless I can get the power to do 50%, so it could move through anywhere between 50-1000 gallons an hour depending on what size tank I settle on. I'm looking for doing a sump and possibly an undergravel filter. However, if I do sand, the UGF won't work too well. It would only be nice as a way to suck some of the gunk down for the anchored plants to grow on. I'm wary about using gravel or rocks because you know the turtles will try to eat them. I'll probably end up going with sand or dirt unless I find a better alternative. They currently have ceramic tile which I baked for a few hours the first time and do so again every month. It's just something for them to latch onto and helps them wear down their nails. I have the tile flipped so that the bottom with the squares faces up. I think they are there so that the grout has something to hold onto, but I'm no tile-layer.

More on the future filter, seeing as I will have both plants and fish, I'm trying to decide what would be the best system to drain the water from the tank to the sump. I've thought about using a screen of some sort to prevent plants and small fry going through, or creating a drip system where the water will drain via drip. I'll have to find the video on Youtube that gave me the idea. I also thought about some sort of tubing to flow the water into a pre-filter of sorts. The tube would be small enough to prevent turtles from moving out of the tank, but would probably still have to be large enough that small fish could get swept away. They would have to be removed daily or so from a "holding tank" of sorts that drains into the filter. I'm hoping not to clog up any filter or sump with the duckweed and frogbit I plan on having in the tank. Duckweed is a pain to clean out of a filter. I guess I will have to ask at the various forums I visit and at a few local fish stores. Most of them are saltwater specific, so they may know a thing or two.

All of the tank building will be several months down the road. Maybe I'll do it as a birthday gift to myself in July. All I can really say is that hopefully I've moved by then into a house, either rent or own, and will have more room than a 950 sq ft apartment. Once I own a house, I'll make sure I have more than enough room for a greenhouse and I'll probably convert one into a turtle house, if I can manage the "magnifying glass" effect my step-father seems to think will happen. Then, we'll be getting into some really cool plans!


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## mshill90 (Oct 29, 2011)

My name is Melissa. Middle initial S, last name Hill. Just for clarification. 

Reading your plans, I can say you are somewhat on the right track... However, for fish and ponds and turtle, you want to strive for filtration of at least 2x an hour.. With ponds, whether it be fish or turtles, substrate is bad. It holds tons of waste, which when kicked up, will cause HUGE ammonia spikes, which, we know are also bad, and definitely not something many aquatic keepers wanna deal with. If you want something, tile is going to be your best bet because you can remove them and vaccuum up and waste.

I don't keep substrate in my turtle tanks.. there is already enough of waste to the point I'm doing 50%-75% almost every 3 days. And when I miss a water change, oh, the water lets me know. It's cloudy, it's brown, and when you put your hand in the water, you can feel the waste floating around in the water. I currently don't have a filter on this, as it's their winter temp home, and my filter levels in the barrels got all jumbled up and I need to replace it all. 

However, for filtration when I had them outside, I used a submersible Laguna Pond Pump, which was attached to the 55 gallon sand/gravel filter. Because of all the flooding we had this year, they added extra chemicals to our water system, which made HUGE algae blooms to the point that when I did 100% water changes- 12 hours later I couldn't see the turtles. The algae was horrible. Now imagine if I had plants.. that would have made it much much worse. 

However, you can have plants without having the entire tank with substrate. Just get yourself some pond baskets, and you can even get/make floating plant islands. And then for different levels of plants, you can get cinder blocks and put them in the tank and set the baskets on top of it. But, chances are.. your turtles will destroy them. Painted turtles are big plant eaters. That's why I keep terrapins.  You could go with silk/cloth plants. Those can't be eaten. 

Sorry my post is all over the place... I'm typing as I think... 

As for efficiency on a filter, I recommend the Sand/Gravel filter... ok, so you have to put in the money to make it, and the time to put it together, but you won't find a better filter for a pond, unless you wanna spend upwards of $1,000+ on a Sieve system.. which is what I ended up doing for my 6,000 gallon pond. I was going to use 4 sand/gravels and 4 Poly Strapping barrels, but I didn't have enough space.. but then again, I'm putting over 200 koi from 3"-30" in my pond, so I need as much filtration as possible. 

My outside turtle pond which is in the works, is going to be upwards of 2,000 gallons, and will be run by the sand/gravel filter. My 1500 gallon indoor koi tank is run off of a S/G filter, with a 40 watt UV- it gets blown out and backwashed every 2 weeks with an air compressor, and the water is always crystal clear. 

As for getting the water out of the tank for cleanings.. you can easily unhook the tube that goes from the pump to the filter and let it pump itself out.. or you can make an opening at the bottom of your filter with a ball valve.. just open it up, and let it dump out. 

Here's a picture of my koi filtration, and I'll attach some pics/links to what my koi tank looks like. The filter on my koi tank looks really complicated.. that's only because we have it plumbed into the house plumbing.  

Ok, enough for now.

Koi pond: indoor 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fjPLvUbX7Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2phlgFobaaY

The pic of the indoor tank was when we first filled it.. since this pic, we have added screened tops, and trickle towers to the shower bar seen in pics.


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## lexiloo (Nov 26, 2011)

Wow, your koi are beautiful! I've made it my goal to have a koi pond when I own my first house. And now that you've mentioned a turtle pond...


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## calisphere (Oct 25, 2011)

I haven't thought much about the filtration system, but I'll look up the ones you mentioned. I'm going to have to find the video I was thinking about the other day, but at the moment I have to start Firefox. Stupid Flash Player crashed when I was playing Farmville and now it's messing with my computer. I wanted to finish reading the new posts here before restarting Firefox. Anyway, I'll be able to open your piccys after that. Shall return with video! ;D


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## calisphere (Oct 25, 2011)

Sorry for the double post...

This video inspired some of my ideas. I'll have to do a Sketch Up of some of my plans. I think I'll actually run off and do that now. For now though, please view the video for your pleasure. Also, I'll do more research on the filters. My turtles have a very basic filter right now, a turtle filter by... Zoo Med maybe that is supposed to filter 75 gallons. It works for now as I don't feed in the tank.


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