Habitat - Indoor :: Smelly tank

[Vatoloco13]

Hello I have had Lily for about 2 months and I cleaned the tank every other week, and everything was good, I added a new turtle Pad, and after cleaning the tank it has only been one week and its starting to smell any suggestions? should I add additional filter?

[ataraxiamb]

How big is Lily? How big is the tank? What kind of filter are you using? Rule of thumb is you should get a filter that can handle 2x the gallons of water you are filtering, as most filters are made for fish aquariums, and fish don't produce as much poop and whatnot as a turtle.

[Vatoloco13]

Lily is about 5 inches, Pad is about 4, tank is 60 gallons, I was using a tetra whisper x70, since smell started i bought a fluval u4

[Tdgosu]

When was the last time you replaced the filter pad?

I think the majority of the people here would recommend getting an external canister filter as the internal filters do not do too well at cleaning up turtle tanks.

[Kansasslider]

What do you feed them? How often do you do water changes at least once a week? Your tank should not smell at all if your doing everything correctly .Your filter might not be able to keep up with the poop! How much water is in the tank. No reason for smelly water other than your doing something wrong! oh yeah um do you use carbon?

[ataraxiamb]

Sounds like a better filter is needed. Though my turtle would delight in visiting and eating all of the poop.

[Vatoloco13]

when I only had Lily I was cleaning biweekly, when I added Pad it only took one week and it started smelling, so to the external filter I had I have added an internal filter also it seem to helped the issue water look cleaner, and the smell has gone away

[Kansasslider]

In my opinion,You should do a 50% water change once a week.

[devilduck]

I don't think even both of those filters working together is enough for a 2 turtle tank with a 4 and a 5 inch turtle for long. Look into stepping up to a full size canister filter in the 150 gallon+ range. If your on a budget check out the SunSun/Perfect brand filters on ebay.