Aquariums and upgrades

[v6buicks]

I tried searching but only found a ton of for sale posts. It looks like TCG got out of aquariums, and I don't blame them! One big difference between fish and turtles though is that fish die. I'm so that means I've had the same two turtles for more than half my lifetime. I'm not giving up on them now!

I really need to get a second tank so that they each have their own permanent space, but I'd really like to dial in my existing tank first. It's a 75 gallon which is good enough for one turtle, but my filtration is lacking bad. I have one of those little deals that hang on the side of the tank which needs to be cleaned every few days. I'm looking to replace it with a Fluval FX6, which should at least allow me to get away with only partial water changes and monthly filter tear downs.

My questions are in regards to plumbing. My 75 gallon tank is not drilled although I do have some diamond hole saws. Worth it? Should I plumb it up the side with PVC and ball valves like I've seen in other set-ups? This tank is in my living room, so I want it to look as well as it needs to function. Part of my problem with running up the side of the tank is that I have no room in the back, and you're not supposed to have any horizontal sections of plumbing, so no bulkhead on the side. I don't see why it would matter much, but maybe somebody can set me straight?

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[Thirdgen89GTA]

I have no clue, but as my Mom recently adopted a turtle, I am now interested. Need to make sure that guy has a good life.

 

[v6buicks]

I have no clue, but as my Mom recently adopted a turtle, I am now interested. Need to make sure that guy has a good life.

I wish you all and the turtle good luck. They're tough little guys, and yet pretty sensitive. You know what kind of turtle?

 

[FESTER665]

So are you looking to add a sump so you can keep everything underneath, or just like a large canister filter underneath and you just want the intake and output tapped through the bottom?

 

[blue-sun]

I've had big tanks for almost a decade now. I started with a 5 gallon glofish tank and current set up is 2 tanks, a 60G community fish tank and a 36G african shelldweller tank. I've had shrimp tanks, betta tanks, African Cichlid MBuna tank that breed like crazy!

At one point, I had 4 or 5 tanks running in the house over 300 gallons of water combined, always freshwater fish (125G, 75G and the 60G I have now plus some smaller tanks)

I've learned alot of general fish tank/aquarium info from this channel:

Here's a great YT channel for all things aquarium/fish.

https://www.youtube.com/c/Thekingofdiyjoey

I have personally never drilled a tank, I've always used canister filters/HOB/Sponge filters.

One thing I learned from YT is that you can never have too much filtration. Even now, I have extra filters running on my 2 tanks. Both have canister filters and both have additional filters, a HOB on the 36G and a sponge filter in the 60G. I recently bought 2 dozen tetras from Aquarium Adventure and used an old storage tote as a quarantine tank where I used the sponge filter straight out of the 60G and tossed it in the makeshit quarantine tank for 1.5 months until I recently put them all in my community tank.

In both canister filters, I tend to skip the filter floss/activated carbon and just give the bacteria surface area to live on via sponge material, bio balls and other filter media from older filters. Just last week my canister in the 60G started to leak and I could not fix it (tried over a few days to get it to stop in various ways but it kept dripping over a gallon a day) so I got a new one and aside from the bioballs that came in the new filter, I pulled the old media out and crammed as much as I could in the new filter and its been fine so far.

Sometimes I wish I would have kept the 125G tank, it was a beast, but I like the set up we have now. I was looking for another 60G to move the 36G into and having the bar area in my basement with matching tanks.

Pics as of a few mins ago and one from when I moved the tanks to this wall a few weeks ago (the 60G was moved only at the time)

 

[FESTER665]

Drilling tanks is easy, just make sure the bottoms isn’t tempered glass, make a dam with plumbers putty pour a little water in there to keep it cool and drill the tank.

I always kept my filtration in sumps to keep it out of the tanks and easier to work on When i was reef keeping.

 

[v6buicks]

So are you looking to add a sump so you can keep everything underneath, or just like a large canister filter underneath and you just want the intake and output tapped through the bottom?

I looked into sumps but I'm reading that they're not great for turtles because they rely on surface skimming. *shrug* I know very little about them, but I was kind of excited to build one. lol

 

[FESTER665]

Because sumps have a finite amount of room for water when the pumps turn off so you don’t want the entire display tank to drain into the sump.

You’re talking about basically creating a closed loop setup with a canister filter. I see no reason it wouldn’t work, just add ball valves so you can make sure the water won’t drain out the display tank when doing maintenance. You’ll get some excess water in the lines so be sure to coat the inside of the stand so it doesn’t get too wet and you’ll be fine IMO

 

[blue-sun]

Some videos from Joey (link I posted above) about drilling:

 

[v6buicks]

In both canister filters, I tend to skip the filter floss/activated carbon and just give the bacteria surface area to live on via sponge material, bio balls and other filter media from older filters. Just last week my canister in the 60G started to leak and I could not fix it (tried over a few days to get it to stop in various ways but it kept dripping over a gallon a day) so I got a new one and aside from the bioballs that came in the new filter, I pulled the old media out and crammed as much as I could in the new filter and its been fine so far.

Nice set-ups! I've read this exact thing. The only reason I use it now is to prevent the stink in my undersized filter. Otherwise, I hear that carbon is pretty worthless and maintenance-heavy.

Turtle waste is big, heavy, and very plentiful, so the general rule I had always heard form turtle nerds is 3x your tank size of filtration at the minimum. Turtles are also destructive, so It needs to be robust and child-proof per se. Other than that, It doesn't seem much different than fish stuff.

So If I was to get a big canister filter, my plan was to drill a hole for the intake. Install a bulkhead with a grate close to the floor, and run a discharge to the top in a way which will aerate the water a bit. Both lines would have ball valves close to the filter for service. Does that sound reasonable? Most of the directions and "tips" I read are coming from people who likely have zero handy or mechanical skills, so what they might think is a bad idea is probably something that they just don't know how to do correctly. I figured TCG OT was a more solid place to ask. Thanks!

 

[FESTER665]

You’ll need a pretty good size strainer I imagine on the bulkhead with the waste turtles create but I see no reason it wouldn’t work. Then underneath on the bulkhead add a ball valve and then a barb fitting to flexible line to the canister filter. Repeat on the output side and put a nozzle on the end and you should be good.

i doubt turtles need a ton of flow like I needed with reef fish, but I imagine it might not be a bad idea to add a small power head in the tank to not have all the waste settle and have the filter clean it better?

 

[FESTER665]

I can’t remember any 75g tanks that I drilled being tempered but of course verify before drilling. I used a 75g for a sump on my 180g reef and I’ve drilled a few for displays and don’t recall any being tempered.

Usually did breeder tanks mostly for sumps, 40g breeder being the most common Like on my 90g rimless starfire reef.

 

[cap42]

Might need a check valve as well in case the power goes out and you have a siphon effect. I set my water line in the sump to be able to handle any siphon from the display tank so I didn't need a check valve.

Joey is a great DIY youtuber, he is primarily freshwater fish but has a lot of great information about building your own tank/stands/filtration and plumbing systems.

 

[FESTER665]

Might need a check valve as well in case the power goes out and you have a siphon effect. I set my water line in the sump to be able to handle any siphon from the display tank so I didn't need a check valve.

Joey is a great DIY youtuber, he is primarily freshwater fish but has a lot of great information about building your own tank/stands/filtration and plumbing systems.

For sure, but I’m his instance he won’t be doing a sump, so he shouldn’t need to worry about siphon, just treat it like a closed loop system and he should be good. …

I miss my tanks on occasion, if I have the room in a living room anytime in my future I will have another setup, they just aren’t as much fun when you need to go into a spare bedroom to enjoy them.

 

[cap42]

yes but the canister filter would be below the display so there would still be a risk of a siphon effect if a power loss occurred

 

[v6buicks]

yes but the canister filter would be below the display so there would still be a risk of a siphon effect if a power loss occurred

I guess since it's below it would just be a drain with no siphon needed which is worse. I like the check valve idea. Good insurance.

 

[FESTER665]

yes but the canister filter would be below the display so there would still be a risk of a siphon effect if a power loss occurred

Canister filter is alway full Isn’t it ?

In any case it’s a sealed unit so even if power goes out it’s not like it will overflow and you would need to worry about siphon flooding anything.

 

[blue-sun]

Nice set-ups! I've read this exact thing. The only reason I use it now is to prevent the stink in my undersized filter. Otherwise, I hear that carbon is pretty worthless and maintenance-heavy.

Turtle waste is big, heavy, and very plentiful, so the general rule I had always heard form turtle nerds is 3x your tank size of filtration at the minimum. Turtles are also destructive, so It needs to be robust and child-proof per se. Other than that, It doesn't seem much different than fish stuff.

So If I was to get a big canister filter, my plan was to drill a hole for the intake. Install a bulkhead with a grate close to the floor, and run a discharge to the top in a way which will aerate the water a bit. Both lines would have ball valves close to the filter for service. Does that sound reasonable? Most of the directions and "tips" I read are coming from people who likely have zero handy or mechanical skills, so what they might think is a bad idea is probably something that they just don't know how to do correctly. I figured TCG OT was a more solid place to ask. Thanks!

When I had the 125G tank with Mbuna Cichlids, they're alot like turtles, lots of waste from them.

I had a Fluval FX6 on that tank and it was solid the few years I had that tank. The filter is rated for 400 gallons, so that was roughly 3x the size of the tank and never had a problem keeping up with their waste.

https://fluvalaquatics.com/us/product/fx6-high-performance-canister-filter/

Another thing to think of is the maintenance piece. With my Mbuna tank, the reason they breed like crazy is for a while there, I was religious with the maintenance. Weekly water changes, clean the filters monthly (at the time, I had them in a 93G tank running 2 Fluvial 306's, which I cleaned 1 each month) and the fish loved it.

With this community tank, if I'm lucky I'll do a water change once a month. I've gotten lazy about it, but with less fish that aren't as dirty as the Mbuna, the tank has been fine for years. Some of the fish in that tank I've had for 6 years now.

 

[blue-sun]

For power outages, get a battery back up, I've never really worried and never had a power outage last more than a few hours, so anytime that happened, I'd just clean the tanks after the power was back up.

 

[v6buicks]

Canister filter is alway full Isn’t it ?

In any case it’s a sealed unit so even if power goes out it’s not like it will overflow and you would need to worry about siphon flooding anything.

Ahh I see what you're getting at. Yeah, I guess the check valve would only protect against a leak during power outage which is a pretty unlikely situation. lol

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

I wish you all and the turtle good luck. They're tough little guys, and yet pretty sensitive. You know what kind of turtle?

They didn't know, my guess is Painted turtle, or yellow slider. I only have the one pic of him.

 

[Aircal]

Bit off topic, we feed our turtles feeder gold fish or guppies. So we have a lot of larger rocks and wood in our tank. There are a few spots they can't reach so the fish can have some refuge. For a few years the guppies where breeding so fast we never had to replenish. 2 turtles can wipe out a dozen gold fish in a night. I have fought with the kids for years to not let them eat much so they don't grow to big. Part of the other reason to give the fish some hiding places.

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

My mom occasionally buys some smaller fish to put into the tank with the Turtle. He ate the last 3, but its not fast. They usually get away from him. I think it took him several months to eat the previous 3 fish he shared with.

Certainly gives him something to do when he gets his groove on, I've seen him chase them around the tank like a madman.

 

[Aircal]

Yea I have no clue how they get them so fast. They move so slow and the fish are just like whatever dude...lol Then bam they are all gone...lol

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

Does it make me sadistic if I enjoy watching a Turtle hunt down a fish and find some humor in it?