How would i....?

[vikki3683]

My fish died recently and because its a bigger tank than my turtles are in now i want to put them in it. But what I was wondering is what would i use to completely clean and disinfect the tank before i put the turts in so i know it will safe for them?
Also would the use of an airstone be ok so that the turts get extra oxygen and can i use the fish filter if i completely disinfect that also?
I wont be doing it for a few days as Im not currently at home but I want to try and get it sorted as soon as i can really.
Thanks in advance

[GlasgowGecko]

Ok, im not an expert by any means. But I would strongly advise against disinfecting the filter. Chemical cleaners can be pretty harmful for aquatic animals.
The filter, is it an internal? If so it probably won't be powerful enough for turts...

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Andy

[Graham]

Turts don't get their oxygen from the water, they're air breathing reptiles so oxygenating the water won't make any difference to them from that point of view, there's nothing wrong with using an airstone though, it looks nice and some turts seem to like playing in the stream of bubbles.

You can use Milton Fluid to disinfect the tank, although it's unlikely that your turts could catch anything that the fish had.

Whether you can use the filter or not really depends on whether it's a type that is suitable for turts, and big enough for the size of tank and number of turts that it has to cope with.

[vikki3683]

Its a fluval 2 plus. the tank is a 3 ft one and it will be housing two turtles.
I was told they were yellow bellied turts but you said they were cooters didnt you Graham?
It is an internal one but its pretty powerful and I'll probably use the filter im using for the turts already too so it will have 2 filters going.

[Graham]

I personally wouldn't use anything other than an external filter for turts, even the biggest internals don't really do much, and something as small as a Fluval 2 is really just moving the water around.

Bio-filtration to remove toxic ammonia and nitrites is very important for turts, and internal filters simply don't have the neccessary media capacity to cope with that.

[vikki3683]

Thanks graham.
What external filter would you recommend?

[Graham]

Depends on the size of tank and the number and size of turts, something from the Eheim Classic range rated for at least twice the water volume of your tank.