Equipment Review and Discussion :: New Filter Project

[atomtrainer]

Hello all,

I have been having my RES for about 7 years she was about 3 when i got her, she has gone through a 10 gal tank and is currently on a 25 gal tank. She has just went through a growing stage she is about 6in now and is way to big for the 25 gal tank.

I have a 60 gal I am going to get drilled and set up a wet dry filter below and basking platform on top.

I have read a pile of info about the wet dry filters some say bio balls other say porous rock, so I have chose to use both as if the power goes out I want something to hold the critters below the water line in my sump.

Acrylic seams to be high at my local glass shops so I have sourced a vendor online i will be sending drawings to them to cut the glass on a CNC cutter.

I just wanted some one more on the up and up to look at the lay out of the filter before i order the panels.

http://www.piertopier.us/myspace/Sams_Bio_Filter_24x12x24.pdf

Thanks in advance
Sam

[steve]

I'm not the filter expert here but why would you want to do this to a 60 gallon tank? Is this a custom tank w/a built-in filter section?

[VeipaCray]

My advice is don't do this.

I would NOT use a drilled tank with a sump for a turtle. Sumps work great on saltwater and planted tanks but not regular freshwater and especially not turtle tanks.

In a marine tank, the SG of the saltwater causes much of the proteins and waste to float where it is skimmed off the surface of the water through the overflow drilled or otherwise.
In a freshwater tank, the SG of the water is 0. The waste does not float and sinks to the bottom of the tank where it is never filtered. This is great for planted tanks where fish waste = plant fertilizer.

In a turtle tank where our friends produce a LOT of waste that contains a LOT of ammonia, it just sinks to the bottom of the water column where the surface skimming overflow never gets the waste to the sump or wet/dry filter. Yes, the water that makes it to the filter contains ammonia / nitrites etc and the filter will remove some of that but the source of the ammonia is the turtle waste which will be sitting on the bottom of your tank unfiltered. You'll end up manually cleaning your tank frequently. For a turtle tank, nothing beats a large canister filter that can pull waste directly from the bottom of the water column.

If a tank with an overflow and wet/dry or sump worked well.. I'd have one...trust me I'm a huge fan of sumps. In my build thread linked in my signature, you can see both my turtle tank and my planted tank with overflow and sump plus all of it's plumbing. They're both 75G tanks. I've built numerous tanks, drilled numerous tanks etc and am very familiar with how the setup you are looking at works. My strong advice is to think twice.