Hello All;
I have what I would consider an unorthodox freshwater set up. This of course opens the door to unorthodox problems and solutions. Some of you might say its not unorthodox, its idiotic. Thats fine, I halfway think it is too. I did a little research on the problem but just came up with the default answers that assume I have a normal setup. So I'm expecting to get responses like "you can't do that". However, if any of you have any recommendations, I'm open to try them. I have a freshwater turtle my son pulled from the local creek. He (I think) measures about 5-6 inches in diameter. I put him into a 50 gallon aquarium outside. I was using a Tetra Whisper filter (left over from a previous aquarium) up until a few days ago. As you can imagine, by the end of the week, the glass was coated with algae and the water was full of algae and the filter was choked with algae. Turtle feces were also a problem. The filter really wasn't cleaning anything up because it was underrsized. So I decided to set up an under-gravel filter to address the feces (at least it works with fish, not sure if it will work with a turtle). I finished setting up the undergravel filter with a few live plants added today. Then I got the bright idea that I could put one of those algae eaters in to control the algae growth. Problem is, most of the information I gleaned on algae eaters suggests that they have very narrow tolerances in their environment. So here is the challenge. How do I control the algae under outdoor conditions? Are there any algae eaters that can tolerate the wide temperature range for a typical spring or summer day. (I'm in Houston, Texas and we don't have a spring to speak of. Its summer from about May to October.) If not, are there any chemicals or natural substances I can use that won't make the water toxic in the quantities I would need to control the algae. I really don't want to bring the aquarium in-doors because I'm not sure where I would put it without investing a few hundred $ on a stand. I've half a mind to take him back to the creek but my wife likes him and he only has two claws, so he's operating at a disadvantage in the wild.
Thanks
I have what I would consider an unorthodox freshwater set up. This of course opens the door to unorthodox problems and solutions. Some of you might say its not unorthodox, its idiotic. Thats fine, I halfway think it is too. I did a little research on the problem but just came up with the default answers that assume I have a normal setup. So I'm expecting to get responses like "you can't do that". However, if any of you have any recommendations, I'm open to try them. I have a freshwater turtle my son pulled from the local creek. He (I think) measures about 5-6 inches in diameter. I put him into a 50 gallon aquarium outside. I was using a Tetra Whisper filter (left over from a previous aquarium) up until a few days ago. As you can imagine, by the end of the week, the glass was coated with algae and the water was full of algae and the filter was choked with algae. Turtle feces were also a problem. The filter really wasn't cleaning anything up because it was underrsized. So I decided to set up an under-gravel filter to address the feces (at least it works with fish, not sure if it will work with a turtle). I finished setting up the undergravel filter with a few live plants added today. Then I got the bright idea that I could put one of those algae eaters in to control the algae growth. Problem is, most of the information I gleaned on algae eaters suggests that they have very narrow tolerances in their environment. So here is the challenge. How do I control the algae under outdoor conditions? Are there any algae eaters that can tolerate the wide temperature range for a typical spring or summer day. (I'm in Houston, Texas and we don't have a spring to speak of. Its summer from about May to October.) If not, are there any chemicals or natural substances I can use that won't make the water toxic in the quantities I would need to control the algae. I really don't want to bring the aquarium in-doors because I'm not sure where I would put it without investing a few hundred $ on a stand. I've half a mind to take him back to the creek but my wife likes him and he only has two claws, so he's operating at a disadvantage in the wild.
Thanks