I know on the habitat page it says that ammonia, nitrites and nitrites are just as important with turtles as fish, which makes sense..but I am seeing a lot of posts where people are judging their water quality by looks. Well, you can't judge water quality by looks. Those elements are invisible to the eye.
What are the danger number / healthy numbers for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates in the water for turtles?
Also, there is a misconception that snails & plecos eat poo...they don't...they are plant, meat and algae eaters and need water room just like turtles do and have special diet requirements, just like turtles do. So if you have a 2" turtle in the recommended 20 gallons and want to add a pleco, you need to upgrade by at least 10 gallons and know what kind of pleco you are getting since common plecos can grow to over 12" in size and need a pond. A snail needs 2.5 gallons or more for each snail.
They will greatly impact and add ammonia to the water until it cycles. So people may think they are doing a good thing for their tank, but in reality, it just throws the water into another cycle and may overload the tank with bad stuff they cannot see if their tank & filtration is not big enough to handle the load.
Also, the lingo for turtle filtration is different than for fish, but I think the lingo is confusing because not all filtration is marked the same.
Example: The lingo for fish is a certain GPH *gallons per hour*. Normally it is about 5, can be as low as 2, but for goldfish it is 10. Which means a 10 gallon tank, good for one goldfish, would need a filter with 100GPH. SO if you go to buy a filter, it does not matter what the tank size is on the box, only the factual number of the GPH on the box matters.
But I have noticed that in the filtration sticky it says 2 times the tank size.
Example: A 10 gallon tank would need a filter rated for a 20 gallon aquarium. Well, that is not a set number. One brand's 20 gallon filter may pump 100 GPH and the next brand may only pump 50GPH.
The higher up you go, the bigger the difference can be. The Fluval FX5 only pumps 607GPH but it says it is good up to a 400 gallon tank...that is only about 1.5 filtration. Another wet dry will handle 1200GPH and is said to be recommended for a 30 gallon tank...well, that is 4x filtration.
In other words, to say one should go by the tank size recommendation is misleading since they all vary. Plus, not all filtration works the same and added hose, filter media, etc diminishes the strength of the input and output.
I also noticed where someone said that turtles are very dirty, dirtier than fish. Which if this is true, I cannot see how anything less than what is recommended for goldfish, the dirtiest, would work. So the clearer guideline would be one with a GPH number per inch of turtle....whatever that number may be.
Example: If each inch of turtle needs 10 gallons of water and goldfish are the dirtiest fish around, it would seem that each inch of turtle would need at least 10 GPH per inch....make sense? So a two" turtle should have 20 gallons of water and 200 GPH, 2-2" turtles should have 40 gallons and 400GPH if going by the dirty rule.
Last thing, biomedia...I am not seeing a lot of info on biomedia for turtle tanks. I would assume it is equally important, as well as cycling a tank for the turtles?
I did find this on the habitat page:
"Water filtration and quality are the final major concerns of a well-maintained environment. Since captive RES eat, sleep and produce waste in their limited water, it is critical to have well-cycled and filtered water. Clean water greatly reduces the instances of infection, the growth of algae and fungus. The presence and build-up of harmful bacteria and chemicals should be monitored regularly. "
But I am not seeing very much conversation or posts where people are discussing cycling the tank or water prams. Am I missing something?
Any help on this would be appreciated.
