Hi All,
I am closing on my dream house in about 2 months and will finally be able to give my turtles the room they deserve. I have two 8' diameter 24" deep stock tanks (pic attached). One will house my 25lb albino snapping turtle and the other will have 3 adult red-bellied turtles and an adult diamondback terrapin. The ponds will be side by side and I want one filter to serve both ponds.
I have been racking my brain and scouring this site and pretty much every other article and forum on the interwebs, however I can't seem to settle on a filter type. These ponds will be indoor in an unheated garage and I hope to give my turtles a somewhat natural seasonal temperature shift to encourage breeding. That being said, I would like to be able to provide some heat as I don't want the water to get TOO cold during the winter.
I guess I'll list the pros and cons of each filter type I'm considering and see what input you guys have...so here goes.
1. Swimming Pool Sand Filter: I like the ease of maintenance and cleaning of this type of filter, however I am seeing a bunch of conflicting info regarding how fast they clog up. Turtles are generally very messy eaters and I think that if I go this route I may be backwashing every few days. Does anyone have experience using these filters with messy eaters? I read that a lot of koi pond guys use sand filters (or modified sand filters filled with other types of media), and they give very mixed reviews. One big con of a sand filter is that there is nowhere to put any heaters. If I go the sump route, I can hide a few heaters in there. Another con is that pool filter pumps draw a lot of amperage and will raise my power bill significantly. I could always use a sand filter with a aquarium pump, but that is getting more costly.
2. Diatomaceous Earth Filter (Hayward EC40): I stumbled on this thread...https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...omaceous-earth-de-filter.434493/#post-5318667 ...where the guy is raving about the use of this type of filter. I have experience with swimming pool filters and I know that DE is some messy crap. I also think this type of filter may clog up fast with any decent type of bioload. After exhaustive searching I haven't been able to find many people using this type of filtration, so there has to be some big drawback. Does anyone have any experience with these? They look to be fairly low maintenance as well, but I don't want to be cleaning this filter every day or two because it is getting clogged.
3. Elevated "Dump" Filter: Basically this is an elevated sump that uses gravity to return the water to the ponds. I have a 350 gallon stock tank that I was going to outfit with two "biotowers" made from Sterilite tubs fitted with a drip tray on top and filled with biomedia (scrubbies, bioballs, etc). Obviously there will be mechanical filtration for the water to flow through before it gets to the biomedia. With this style filter I can hide heaters in the sump and I was also planning on planting it heavily for nitrate reduction. The downsides of this type of filter is it is higher maintenance and cleaning than the other two and it has a higher upfront cost since I have to buy two pumps and a ton of biomedia. Also, I still haven't found a good place to buy a bulk order of scrubbies on the cheap.
Any thoughts, comments, criticisms are much appreciated. Thanks!!!
I am closing on my dream house in about 2 months and will finally be able to give my turtles the room they deserve. I have two 8' diameter 24" deep stock tanks (pic attached). One will house my 25lb albino snapping turtle and the other will have 3 adult red-bellied turtles and an adult diamondback terrapin. The ponds will be side by side and I want one filter to serve both ponds.
I have been racking my brain and scouring this site and pretty much every other article and forum on the interwebs, however I can't seem to settle on a filter type. These ponds will be indoor in an unheated garage and I hope to give my turtles a somewhat natural seasonal temperature shift to encourage breeding. That being said, I would like to be able to provide some heat as I don't want the water to get TOO cold during the winter.
I guess I'll list the pros and cons of each filter type I'm considering and see what input you guys have...so here goes.
1. Swimming Pool Sand Filter: I like the ease of maintenance and cleaning of this type of filter, however I am seeing a bunch of conflicting info regarding how fast they clog up. Turtles are generally very messy eaters and I think that if I go this route I may be backwashing every few days. Does anyone have experience using these filters with messy eaters? I read that a lot of koi pond guys use sand filters (or modified sand filters filled with other types of media), and they give very mixed reviews. One big con of a sand filter is that there is nowhere to put any heaters. If I go the sump route, I can hide a few heaters in there. Another con is that pool filter pumps draw a lot of amperage and will raise my power bill significantly. I could always use a sand filter with a aquarium pump, but that is getting more costly.
2. Diatomaceous Earth Filter (Hayward EC40): I stumbled on this thread...https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...omaceous-earth-de-filter.434493/#post-5318667 ...where the guy is raving about the use of this type of filter. I have experience with swimming pool filters and I know that DE is some messy crap. I also think this type of filter may clog up fast with any decent type of bioload. After exhaustive searching I haven't been able to find many people using this type of filtration, so there has to be some big drawback. Does anyone have any experience with these? They look to be fairly low maintenance as well, but I don't want to be cleaning this filter every day or two because it is getting clogged.
3. Elevated "Dump" Filter: Basically this is an elevated sump that uses gravity to return the water to the ponds. I have a 350 gallon stock tank that I was going to outfit with two "biotowers" made from Sterilite tubs fitted with a drip tray on top and filled with biomedia (scrubbies, bioballs, etc). Obviously there will be mechanical filtration for the water to flow through before it gets to the biomedia. With this style filter I can hide heaters in the sump and I was also planning on planting it heavily for nitrate reduction. The downsides of this type of filter is it is higher maintenance and cleaning than the other two and it has a higher upfront cost since I have to buy two pumps and a ton of biomedia. Also, I still haven't found a good place to buy a bulk order of scrubbies on the cheap.
Any thoughts, comments, criticisms are much appreciated. Thanks!!!
