What is a good brand of filter for turtles?

turtles
statistics student asked:

I have two baby red eared sliders and they are dirty little **** machines! I want to buy them a new, more powerful water filter. What kind should I get? Also, how many pellets should I be feeding my baby turtles everyday? One is about an inch and a half long and the other is two inches long.

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4 Responses to 'What is a good brand of filter for turtles?'

  1. Tortoise Lover - January 29th, 2010 at 3:52 am

    Your filter needs to be stronger than the size of your tank. For example, a 10 gallon tank would need a 30-40 gallon tank filter. After doing some research, a couple of people recommended the Mag Float Filter:

    Whatever you decide, don’t get a Whisper brand filter. They are horrible! Good luck!!!

    Whoops… I forgot to answer the rest of the questions!

    There is no set number of pellets per day. Feed the turtle however many pellets it can consume in 5 minutes. But remember that turtles can over eat, so use good judgement. Out of curiousity, what kind of pellets are you feeding them? When I had a RES, it loved the HBH Turtle Bites.

  2. matt c - January 31st, 2010 at 4:21 pm

    for filter it depends on the size of the tank if you have a small tank it is going to be really hard to keep clean remember dilution is the solution to pollution. the bigger the tank the easier to keep clean but for turtles filters should be able to handle at least twice the tank volume (10 gallon tank 20 gallon filter, 30 gallon tank 60 gallon filter, so on and so on) I suggest either a submersible filter if the tank is smaller or a canister filter (or two) if it is a larger tank (75 gallon and up) or any combination of the two that might work best for your size tank

  3. jellybean379 - January 31st, 2010 at 11:35 pm

    i Have a LARGE turtle.
    you should use Zoo Med’s OR Fluval Canister Filters.

  4. sheltermamma - February 1st, 2010 at 3:09 am

    I like my Fluval canister filter. I have one PT in a 55-gallon tank, about 3/4 of the way full of water (my turt is over a year old now and about 5″ long). Honestly I always hear how filthy these critters are but I don’t very often see **** or other debris in his tank. Maybe he eats it. But that filter does a very good job of keeping the water clean.

    I hear the rule of thumb is to feed your turtle as many pellets as would fit inside their head and neck, if they were hollow.

    Babies need lots of protein – in addition to the pellets, try to offer a variety of protein sources. When I could find them, I’d drop inchworms into the tank and my turtle would gobble them up. I also gave a few meal worms every other day. As adults they don’t eat as much protein and are happy on pellets and a variety of leafy greens and some fruits. I currently feed my turtle pellets, grapes, nice dark lettuce (not iceberg!), dandelion greens, and he loves the little leaves from the bushes I have in front of my house, but I have no idea what they are.

    I also break off pieces of cuttlebone and drop those into the water. They dissolve in the water and provide calcium, and my turtle loves to bite them and eat them too so it keeps his beak down.


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