Hi, I was hoping you can give me some help with my sunsun. I cleaned my filter about a week ago and came home yesterday to what looked like a natural disaster in my turtle tank. its a 75 gallon tank about half full with the sunsun filter. I have been using it for about a year with out any real problems. So I assumed my house sitter just over fed and I completely drained the thing and cleaned it with just fresh water and cleaned the filter. I put poly and the green pad it came with in the bottom basket, green scrubbies in the middle and balls and rings it came with in the top. So I checked it this morning and the water is green and cloudy. What am I doing wrong here? Any help is greatly appreciated. The filter is still pumping so I am assuming its working. I was thinking that maybe I just killed off all the good bacteria and need to give it time to regenerate. Thanks for the help.
turtle, sunsun help
- Thread starter ll1542
- Start date
Was/is the natural disaster the same as the green cloudy water? If yes, I am guessing its not the filter. Green water usually isn't a filter issue, its a water quality issue. If it is differrent, you "might" have had some buildup from the filter tubes discharge out into the tank and the resulting nutirent spike fed a green water algae bloom. Typically I like to do my filter cleans with my tank that has a sunsun before I do a water change so the water change will remove the bulk of any crud that is shot out of the tubes because of the cleaning.
Do a few parameter checks, particularly nitrates and phosphates if you have them. I'm guessing one of those is pretty high and feeding your bloom. Compare those results to your tap water. If your tap is much lower, do a large WC and keep an eye on the feedings and increase your WC schedule.
Do a few parameter checks, particularly nitrates and phosphates if you have them. I'm guessing one of those is pretty high and feeding your bloom. Compare those results to your tap water. If your tap is much lower, do a large WC and keep an eye on the feedings and increase your WC schedule.
no the disaster was much much worse. It was so bad and smelled so foul it was unbearable. So I completely cleaned everything, including the hoses. It ran crystal clear yesterday and last night. But this morning it had clouded up and is a little green again. I am hoping it clears itself up but not sure if this will happen. It sounds like I need to do a partial water change again.
If I am not mistaken, turtles produce so much waste that biological filtration doesn't work very effectively. The green water is an algae bloom caused by excess nutrients and light.
I think you would be better off to replace the biological filtration components of your filter with sponges, floss and maybe carbon. This will perform the mechanical (and maybe chemical) filtration that a filter on a turtle tank is designed to do. Changing water is mostly the way to keep turtle tanks clean, you can also use Tidy Turtle or other similar product that promotes sludge breakdown to help with that. However weekly water changes are very important to keeping your tank from getting overly dirty.
A reverse undergravel, or even a normal undergravel that is regularly vacuumed, can work very well on a turtle tank, provided you use powerheads and shorter uplift tubes.
What are you feeding the turtle? A diet of koi pellets makes a great staple, with fresh veggies and Anacharis. Worms and crickets can be offered as a treat.
I think you would be better off to replace the biological filtration components of your filter with sponges, floss and maybe carbon. This will perform the mechanical (and maybe chemical) filtration that a filter on a turtle tank is designed to do. Changing water is mostly the way to keep turtle tanks clean, you can also use Tidy Turtle or other similar product that promotes sludge breakdown to help with that. However weekly water changes are very important to keeping your tank from getting overly dirty.
A reverse undergravel, or even a normal undergravel that is regularly vacuumed, can work very well on a turtle tank, provided you use powerheads and shorter uplift tubes.
What are you feeding the turtle? A diet of koi pellets makes a great staple, with fresh veggies and Anacharis. Worms and crickets can be offered as a treat.
While the tank balances out again, you should consider feeding only greens and/or plants...this will be just fine for a long while, and will greatly reduce the load on your filter while things settle in again.
For my turtle tank i ran a 50b (now my south america tank 
) bare bottom with a magnum HOT 250 on it. I'd fill the thing up with just foam,floss,and ammo carb (ammo lock/carbon mix). I'd do a full empty tank cleaning weekly and scrub the glass and bleach everything including the filter. Dechlor the tank once its filled back up and running, let it run for about an hour with the turtles wandering around the bathroom or something and test for chlorine again, if you're clear then drop the turtles and you're good for a week. You can stretch it out to two weeks before your water turns green if you buy a couple large rubbermaids and feed them in there and leave them in for about an hour to poop/pee...but i found it was easier to just clean the whole tank. Needless to say i keep fish now,no more tutles, and enjoy cycled tanks and 25% water changes.
) bare bottom with a magnum HOT 250 on it. I'd fill the thing up with just foam,floss,and ammo carb (ammo lock/carbon mix). I'd do a full empty tank cleaning weekly and scrub the glass and bleach everything including the filter. Dechlor the tank once its filled back up and running, let it run for about an hour with the turtles wandering around the bathroom or something and test for chlorine again, if you're clear then drop the turtles and you're good for a week. You can stretch it out to two weeks before your water turns green if you buy a couple large rubbermaids and feed them in there and leave them in for about an hour to poop/pee...but i found it was easier to just clean the whole tank. Needless to say i keep fish now,no more tutles, and enjoy cycled tanks and 25% water changes.
IMO bio-filtration in a turtle tank is a waste of time. I would back it full of sponges, floss and carbon and be done with it. You really dont have to worry about "cycling" a turtle tank.
We have a 40 breeder with a single RES and a HOT Magnum. We use the blue sleeves and fill the thing with carbon. The water smells and looks great.
We have a 40 breeder with a single RES and a HOT Magnum. We use the blue sleeves and fill the thing with carbon. The water smells and looks great.
Here is an update on my sunsun woes. It worked perfectly when I got it now it really is not working that well. It seems like it is not filtering out any of the waste. I have floss and sponges in the bottom, scrubbies in the middle and bio in the top. It seems like all the waste is collecting at the very top of the filter and the bottom of the filter is perfectly clean. If I remember right when i first got it, it seemed like all the really nasty stuff was in the bottom bellow the sponge. I am wondering if I am just setting this up incorrectly or if something is wrong with it.
Hard to give you a good answer without being able to actually see it..
IMO this is what generally happens when you (anyone) buys cheap knock off stuff.
IMO this is what generally happens when you (anyone) buys cheap knock off stuff.