General Care Discussion :: Baby turtle being sucked towards Filter intake

[cam722]

I've put a piece of pantyhose on my filter intake to keep large pieces of debris out and make it not so nasty in the filter, and did a good job too. I just took it off and threw it away and replaced it. So it won't hurt the filter operation.. at least it didn't mine.

[SpotsMama]

I like the guard on the XP3 intake because, while the holes in it are large enough to get the debris, they are way too small for anything like a little turtle or fish to get through.

[Muirner]

i put a guppy in my 55 gal with the xp3, he wanted to check out the fliter, yup, sucked him right up.

[SpotsMama]

Yikes! Was it a tiny guppy? Do you have that plastic guard on the intake tube?

[Muirner]

ya it was a small guppy, and yes i did have the intake screen, it went through the very top...

[SpotsMama]

OK, I'll amend my earlier comment:

I like the guard that comes with an XP filter because, while the holes are large enough to allow debris to be sucked up, they are too small for a turtle or a medium sized fish to pass through!

It's just my personal preference, but I'd just as soon have the yucky stuff sucked into the filter - I think that's what the filter is for - rather than inside the tank snagged by a pre-filter. Of course, if my filter didn't have mechanical filtration media in it, then I'd prefer use a pre-filter.

[Hoooneylynn]

does anyone have a pic of their xp3? Everyone talks about it, I've never seen one... how much did it cost?

[steve]

It was $96 when I got it on sale.

[pboyvb]

I got a pretty good deal on my xp2 at petsmart. They price matched the price on petsmart.com to 79.99 (originally in store is 139.99), and currently they have a promotion going on, where if you buy one of the xp's you get $20 store credit.

[Muirner]

I got my XP3 for $104, after online pricematch, it was a very good deal. I bought the filter media (i just got biorings) within the next week i hope to obtain some SeaChem Matrix rocks to go in it.

[Hoooneylynn]

is xp2 better than xp3?

[marisa]

The xp3 is for larger tanks and filters more gph. If you have the xp3, you can use it when you upgrade (there's now an xp4 as well for even larger tanks).

As for your earlier question, the nylon would block some debris from being picked up, but it would likely "stick" to the nylon, and one could easily remove it, clean the nylon and put it back on the intake.

[Hoooneylynn]

thanks