Turtle-tat filter

[sundevil_brian]

Little back story first:
I don't personaly have any monster fish (thus this being my first post) but have been keeping fish for a long time. My friends, who have no clue about the first thing of keeping fish decided to get a turtle for one of their birthdays. they ended up with 9 baby red eared sliders in a 10 gallon tank
fortunitly they upgraded to a 55 gal tank but i told them that wouldn't due for long.

now i finaly convinced him to set up a "pond" consisting of a larger kidie pool (dubbed the "turtle-tat"), and i am designing the filter

The Plans:
I am basicaly going to use a 5 gallon bucket filled with lava rocks as the filter (have the lava rocks on hand or i would get pot scrubbers) .

My idea was to have the bucket sitting on a milk crate.
A pump (300gph) would pump water through pvc that went up through the middle of the bucket through a hole in the bottom of said bucket.
there would be a T at the top of the pvc to desperse the water.

now what i'm not sure of is how to let the water back out to make it as efficient as posible (i.e. circulate all the water in the pool fastest) . I had two ideas.
1. drill a bunch of holes in the bottom of the bucket and let the water come out there or
2. cut a rectagur-ish opening on the botom of one side so that its more of a spillway kind of thing.

i think i'm leaning tward option 2 but i would like to know what everyone thinks.
all other suggestions on the setup or ideas are welcome too.

 

[jpstodwftexas]

I would just pump the water through the Bucket and allow it to flow out the Top. I envision the bucket sits on a crate in the Pond, Is that correct?
Is so just cut the PVC several inches past the Bottom of the Bucket and cover with wire screen and put the Lave rocks in the Bucket. The Water will rise naturally up and over the sides.

I would suggest increasing the Filter (bucket) to a larger size also. 5 Gallons is awful small when it comes to a Biofilter or any type of filter.

If you go with a filter that sits outside the Pond you can add plants to the filter and that helps even more than just relying on Microbes to digest the wastes. and then return the tank..err pond

How large will the pond be?
Is it outdoors?

Too fast of a flow is bad for both the Turtles and the Microbes?

 

[Dr Joe]

Put holes (.125" and enlarge every other one to .250" till flow is correct) around the perimeter of the bucket about 2" above the bottom (to keep some lava rock continuously wet and catch sludge buildup), this will help aerate the water as it fall back to the pond more than a weir would. Use poly-fil on a tray above the lava rock as a pre-filer and spay down on it. If this doesn't keep up add a second bucket filter rather than going larger.

I'd consider at least doubling the pump gph tho.

Do major W/C's till the filter gets established too.

Dr Joe

.

 

[sundevil_brian]

thanks for the replys jp and Dr Joe

jp:
The pond will be outside but in a mostly shaded location as it can get pretty hot here in AZ esp. in the sun and i'm not exactly sure as the size, if i had to guess i would say the kiddie pool is 5ft wide and would be filled 8 in deep which makes it right about 100 gal

Dr Joe:
great ideas. I was thinking about a filter floss pre-filter too. and two buckets is a good idea but i'll start off with just one and then probably upgrade to two down the line. and i will check into the larger pump, but $ is a major factor in this project because it's not for me but i'll probably be picking up most of the tab (the friend i'm doing this for almost never pays me back )

 

[sundevil_brian]

also to increase upgradeability i've just decided to forgo plumbing pvc through the bucket but instead just go up and over the side.