Turtle Tank Setup?

Question

I keep my 3 inch western painted in a 55gal tank with 5 silverdollars, 6 neon tetras, 3 rainbow sharks, 3 mollies, and a ton of ghost shrimp... and two goldfish for cleaning.
So far the only fish that ever went missing are tetras and guppies, which I bought for him anyway. He leaves fish that are too big to fit completely in his mouth alone. This may not apply to all turtles... But it applies to Hachi.
I have a turtle dock and a piece of driftwood for basking, he prefers the driftwood, but dives off the dock all the time, also the dock is where I put his food. I have a reptisun2.0 UV light over him.

I have two filters, a 501 turtle filter and a whisper filter for 30gal tank. Together they push out 300gal's an hour. The whisper is one that is like a canister in the water, not a hang-off-the-back filter.

So far everything is clean, but should I buy one more whisper filter? Or another 501? I used to have a canister that pumped out 600gal's an hour but it broke, so I had to downgrade

Answer 1

Rule of thumb for turtles: There is no such thing as too much filtration, and you'll have to do partial water changes weekly anyway.

For turtles, aim for about 3 times the recommended filter size for fish. I'd say you need more. Try this article for ideas: http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/waterquality.htm

By the way- your observations on prey selection are correct- they will ignore (but possibly harass) fish that are too big or too small.

Answer 2

You definitely need more filtration, I'm not familiar with the 501 turtle filter but I don't like those types of whisper filters so buy which ever you like best. Why do you have 2 goldfish, which are some of the messiest fish for cleaning fish?

Answer 3

You might want more filters, but turtles really can survive almost anything, so it is not completly nessecary, your fish will be effected before the turtles are