General Care Discussion :: PLEASE ANSWER SOON!!! FILTER QUESTION

[750lucklord]

I might buy a Marineland Penguin Bio - Wheel; Power Filters 150B or a Hagen AquaClear 70 Power Filter (formerly AquaClear "300") for my RES turtle, she is 6 months old and in a 30-40 gallon tank? Do either of these use cartridges? Which should i get?

[MommyShanna]

I had one of the penguin bio wheel filters for my RES (also in a 30g tank), but it clogged up very easily, and I really didn't think it did a very good job (though I loved it with my fish). Ultimately, it didn't last very long because we have frequent power brown outs/ outages when it storms and one happened when I was at work... it didn't restart itself and burned the motor up.

[slider_keeper]

if you can get a canister filter those two are not meant for turtles, unfortunately turtles are very very messy animals

[VeipaCray]

+1 for a large volume canister filter

[Touche the Turtle]

I worry about the biowheel filters, because we've had fish, eels, crabs climb into them and injure/trap themselves inside the filter. I can only imagine what trouble a curious turtle could get into with one of those.

[VeipaCray]

There's just not enough media volume in those type of filters to deal with the massive ammonia load the turtle produces. The only practical off the shelf filter for a turtle is a large canister.