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While these filters are significantly less in price, there are some drawbacks. There are many generic and clone filters available that offer an economical alternative to the name brand mainstream filters. Reconfigure your filter for "normal" media configuration.After 24-48 hours, turn off your filter.Install, set, and turn on your aquarium heater.Set your filter up for the "optional" media configuration.Place your substrate in your tank (skip this step for bare bottom tanks).No hazardous water conditioning chemicals are needed for this setup method. This setup method is useful if you are using non-filtered tap water and/or have sand substrate. *Diagrams will be indicated as "optional" If you are considering the optional media configuration to remedy an algae problem, this may help: Algae Control Tank Cleaning: major cleaning events can stir up gunk that can quickly consume regular filtration media.Water Conditioning: removal of chlorine and chloramine without adding conditioning chemicals.Water Polishing: removal of fine particles such as suspended sand to clarify cloudy water.There are other types of bio media available, but the ceramic media provides the most amount of surface area.Ī temporary media configuration via the use of filter floss and carbon is provided for the following use cases: Bio media is available from many manufacturers with the only comparable differences being packaging, price, and shape. Info on Purigen is available here: Seachem Purigenīiological media recommended for aquatic turtle filtration is ceramic rings, stars, or nuggets. Filter floss is sold in the fish section of most pet stores and is also available as "polyfill" or "pillow stuffing" in the crafts or sewing section of many other stores.Ĭhemical media recommended for aquatic turtle filtration is activated carbon and/or Purigen.Ĭarbon needs to be replaced regularly and can last from a few days to a month depending on water conditions. Filter floss is a universal, temporary, inexpensive, disposable media capable of trapping very small particles. Sponge pads can be cleaned, rinsed and reused many times. Sponge pads are usually provided or sold by the filter manufacturer specific to a filter model due to their unique shape or size. Mechanical media types most commonly used in turtle keeping are synthetic sponge pads and filter floss. Descriptions of each of these media types can be found on the main part of the site: There's three types of filtration media needed for a healthy turtle environment: mechanical, chemical and biological. The turtle gallon ratings are for adult sized turtles. This is only a suggested guideline as different filters have different operational designs, pumps, and flow rates. For example, a filter rated to handle an aquarium up to 150 gallons, should adequately filter up to 50 gallons of aquatic turtle environment water to which I will refer throughout this thread as "turtle gallons". Therefore the guideline we follow is to divide the filter's advertised capacity rating by three. A single aquatic turtle produces a much greater bio load than an average community of fish. Therefore, a single adult RES will require anywhere between a 90 to a 120 gallon tank."Īdvertised filter specifications are assumedly based on filtration needs for an appropriately stocked community fish tank. From the main portion of the website: "A guideline to determine this size used by many keepers, as a minimum, is 10 gallons of tank per each inch of shell length (refer to SCL for correct shell measurement). We must first know what size environment for our turtle. There is an ongoing effort to continuously edit and improve this thread, so please send me a message if you spot an error or would like the addition of a particular filter. It is ultimately the decision of the individual turtle keeper to choose what to do with any information presented on this forum. Recommendations here are specific to aquatic turtle keeping and may differ from your filter manufacturer's documentation. The "Filter Media Thread" serves as a reference for filtration best practices derived from Turtle Talk community experience.