Turtle Wednesday: Filters

Quote of the day:

If a turtle is missing his shell
Is he homeless…or naked?

Back to business, I've mentioned filters previously. I want to go into a little more detail about my weapons of choice, the Fluval 304.

My twin 304's

The Fluval 304 has been replaced by the Fluval 305. It looks pretty similar to me, so I imagine it's still a good filter. The 304 is a good filter. I have one on my 30 gallon tank, and one on my 125 gallon tank. Both tanks remain clean and clear, but I think that might be due to how I modified the filter matter. With a little tweaking you can make these GREAT filters.

My 30 breeder with filter hoses shown

Fluval makes four different canister filters, the Fluval 104, 204, 304, 404. I think now they are 105, 205, 305, 405, but you can still find the old ones at reasonable prices. I chose the 304. I believe the 204 had the capacity to handle my 125 gallon tank, but I wanted to make sure I had more filtration that I needed. There's no such thing as too much filtration, especially when you have several adult aquatic turtles. They made a mess!

Within the 304 there are four chambers: one upright for foam pads, and three chambers. Water comes in through the pads, then through the chambers and back out. From the factory they com equipped with four pads, and "prefilters." FYI, prefilter material are those white tube things. They catch the big stuff. If you use the filter the way it comes from the factory, it will keep your tank cleaner than an in-tank filter, but by not much more. Turtles create a lot of ammonia. So you can eliminate a lot of that by making you own ammo-carb sacks. Go to Walmart and buy a couple white stockings. They are 50 cents or so. Buy some ammo-carb from the pet shop. Fill the end of the stocking with a big handful of the white and black pellets. Tie off the end, and cut. Repeat. You should have two of these in your filter. I like to put them on the bottom level. I also like making my water CRYSTAL CLEAR. You can achieve this with regular and dirt-cheap filter floss. I put a wad of it evenly on the bottom of the bottom compartment under the ammo-carb packs. The regular carb packs are fin for the middle level, but if you want to ever replace them, you can use two more ammo-carb bags. Also on the middle level I cut a square of ammonia pad. That helps filter the water more, and reduce ammonia even more.

Fluval hose going into the 125 gallon tank.

There are several benefits to this setup. I only have to wash out the tank and filter about six weeks. Almost all of the filter material is reusable. (Trash the floss after each use, it's cheap anyway.) It leaves more open space in your tank. When I made the upgrade to one of these, it was the best decision I ever made for myself and my pets. We couldn't go on vacation for more than a week when we had the in-tank filters. Now that's not an issue. Plus I have auto-feeders and timers on the lights. I can leave them unattended for weeks and have no fear about how they are doing. Try that with a cat or dog!