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Does anybody know what type of filtering system they use at professional aquariums? Like Sea World has a great turtle exhibit with beautiful crystal clear water.
I'm sure they don't go every week and drain, scrub everything out, and refill the water like I 'm doing in order to keep the water clear.

I have a real crummy filter which I'm replacing. (all it does is just make a fountain noise and agitate the water) I placed a bid on ebay for a FX5 at a good price, but i let the auction go because after doing the research, it looks like that filter may be dangerous and overkill. (Well, I don't care about overkill, as long as it's safe. I just don't want the filter to be harmful for my turtle) Is a really powerful filter like that harmful for a small RES? (He's about 2.5 or 3 inches)

I'm using a 40 gallon take btw, and I have a budget of about $130-180.

Any suggestions would be great!
Thanks!

They would have a custom filter and from a news report I've seen, it's similar to what we would have (Mechanical/chemical/biological filtration).

You can make your own filter, if you are worried about commercial filters, but a Fluval FX5 or a Rena Filstar XP3 or 4 should be fine. As for being too strong, it's only dangerous if the filter cap falls off. But you can take measures towards that. I have a 40 gallon tank with a XP3 and everything's great!

For a 40 gallon tank, I would just go with an XP3, and worry about bigger filters later, when you have a bigger tank. I have a 240 gallon tank with two RES in it, I use two FX5's, and my water is crystal clear for months on end.

My husband used to be an aquatics zookeeper (hippos, salt water tanks, penguins, etc) and I have seen the "behind the scenes" area where the filters are. The largest tank the zoo he worked at had I believe was about 5000 gallons. The filter system was basically a much much larger version of a canister filter. It had several "canisters" that the water went through. I believe each canister did something different or contained different media. The canisters were huge though so aren't really doable for residential use. If I remember correctly there were 4 or 5 seperate canisters for the 5000 gallon and they were each between 4 and 6 feet tall.

I've seen the "behind the scenes" of the Downtown Aquarium in Denver too. Their main tank is enormous. I have no idea how large it could be, but their "canisters" looked like boilers. They were several feet wide and probably 6 to 10 feet tall.

My husband also says that once you get a good filter system going in order to keep the water looking crystal clear to get a UV sterilizer. I haven't tried this with turtles yet, but it works great for big fish tanks.