I just wanted to send out a little warning to anyone who may have a Fluval or similar filter. I have a Fluval FX5 on my turtles' tank and today it malfunctioned and I sadly lost my turtle. The particular filter system we have has two tubes, one that sucks water out of the tank, and one that puts clean water back in. The safety grate on the outtake valve somehow came off during the night and the smaller of my two turtles got sucked up and stuck to it. When I woke up this morning, I heard the filter making loud noises and saw the turtle attached to the valve. I'm not sure how long he'd been there but he couldn't get his head out of the water to breathe and didn't survive. I am completely heart broken about this and not entirely sure how it happened. Please, please, please check the safety cover on your valves. Make sure they are secured tightly, and check it often. We've had ours running for over two years with zero problems until today. I'm not sure how the cover came off, but it ended horribly. I'm hoping that everyone reading this goes and checks their filters and hopefully no one else will have the horror of dealing with this same tragedy.
I haven't written on this forum in a few years (actually had to set up a new account today because I couldn't remember my old one) but some of you may remember my turtles from way back when. We have Lilo (RES) and Stitch (painted). Stitch had two deformed arms and never grew to be very big, but was an extremely happy and playful little guy. Unfortunately his small size and lack of swimming strength is what allowed him to become a victim of the filter. Lilo is much much bigger and wouldn't be effected by the flow of water because of her size. Please folks, if you have this filter, and especially if you have a smaller turtle (Stitch was about six inches) please go tighten those seals.
