Habitat - Indoor :: What is the best filter to buy?

[WeirdMeta]

Does anyone know what brand of filter I should buy? I'm planning on getting a 50-75 gal. tank so I assume I'm going to need a filter that filters 100-150gal. tank.

[missibsu]

I have a 75 gallon tank and I use an xp3. I love it and it works great. A couple of other nice things, it will automatically restart if the power has been off, and doesn't have to be reprimed. It's also really quiet. There are many others on the market that work pretty much the same way. There are also many threads out there asking about the same thing. Read through some of the other posts to find other suggestions. This just happens to be what I have experience with. Another thought, there is a new xp4 on the market now too, not sure of the results as of yet.

[steve]

I second the XP3, it should run you about $100 and will come with the necessary media. You'll also want to pick up some bio-media for the filter.

[SpotsMama]

I'm pretty new to this and got an XP3 and really like it a lot. I'm mechanically impaired and it was simple enough that I could figure it out.

[missibsu]

I'm pretty new to this and got an XP3 and really like it a lot. I'm mechanically impaired and it was simple enough that I could figure it out.

Good point! I had a fluval before the xp3 and for the life of me couldn't figure out the priming bit. I had to make sure the boyfriend was around to do that part for me, lol.

[WeirdMeta]

With the XP3 filter, how often do you have to clean the tank if you have one of these filters?

[Kallistos]

It depends on how many turtles you have, if the tank is in sunlight etc...I'm not sure though

[WeirdMeta]

Lets say 1 or 2 RES in a 75gal. tank. Seems like I read that you only have to clean it like once every 3 months or so if you have a xp3 filter but I may be wrong.

[SpotsMama]

You'll need to do it more than once every 3 months. Once every three months is probably the rule of thumb for a 100% water change, assuming you're doing partial (33% or so) water changes every week or two.

For cleaning the filter, you'll probably need to do it every month with 1 or 2 RES in a 75 gallon tank. If the RES are tiny then maybe less will be ok. It depends on how gross it gets. You're going to have to open that filter up and look in it to see. The good thing is that a filter cleaning with an XP is not that big a deal.

My tolerance for grossness is not that great. I've got one grown male RES in a 100 gallon tank with 60 or 70 gallons of water and I'm going to want to clean that filter every month.

[missibsu]

I have two turts in my 75 gallon. I used to do partial cleanings every other week and a 100% cleanings every month. These days I do partial cleanings once every other week, and full cleanings about every two. My filter gets cleaned once a month. I find that with two turts it needs it.

[WeirdMeta]

Well I've thought about the XP3 filter but for right now its a little exspensive for me. Can someone recommand a good inexspensive filter for like under 50 dollars.

[industrial_girl_2000]

I just got a Fluval 4 submersible filter recently and have been really happy with it. It was on sale (1/2 off) which cost me around 25 bucks. I had to buy an extra container of charcoal/ammonia mix for the filter (additional cost), but it has worked out great so far. The water is so sparkling clean.

It filters up to about 60 gallons of water (I have a 90 gal tank filled up 2/3 of the way) and is very quiet.