Filter For Terrapin

[SteveCourty]

Been to my local petshop to sort out my rescue terrapins new pimped up tank Id been advised before to use an external filter twice the size of the amount of water in the tank The bloke in the shop agreed with the twice the size thing but not with an external and has suggested me an internal filter. The guy obviously isnt trying to rip me off as internals are alot cheaper but is his advice right? I use the guy for all my fish and reptiles and hes a very very knowledgeable man but have I found something hes wrong on????

[kazzy]

internal filters arent worth the money for a terrapin tank they arent large enough to cope with the waste get as good a external as you can afford.

[Turtle Jo]

Turtles produce a lot of waste... internal filters have their place and there are some great, very powerful ones about, but they cannot accommodate the amount of bio media needed to cope with turtle waste, purely because of their size.

Get an external canister and pack it full of bio media.. alfagrog is great (recommended for use in koi pond filters)

[Graham]

Don't waste your money on an internal, even the worst external filter is better than the best internal one!

With turts the most important thing is bio-filtration, crystal clear water with no solids clouding it is great, but if it's full of nasty chemicals like Ammonia and Nitrite (which are colourless) then you'll have all sorts of problems.

The only effective way to deal with these is to have a filter with a large volume of bio-media, an internal filter with sufficient volume would dominate all but the largest tanks, an external is the perfect solution as it can be as big as you like.

[SteveCourty]

I prefer externals anyway use them in my fish tanks so much easier for cleaning and dont block up like some of the internals can ill but an external

[AnythingWithAShell]

Definitely go for an external. I'd say get bigger than 2x the volume of your tank though. 3-4x would be even better, but as has been said, get the biggest you can afford. Water can't be too clean!

[SteveCourty]

well im spending a good few hundred pounds tommorow on bits for it so i suppose an extra bit opn an external wont be a problem

[AnythingWithAShell]

Aww, they are worth it though, aren't they?

[SteveCourty]

yes i sit there for hours watching the little thing looks alot happier now hes got four times as much space as before and the new tank when I get it sorted will be 4 x that again