Filtering ideas please

[Yvonne G]

For whatever reason, I've had to empty my pond and it's probably going to have to stay empty for close to a year. So I have four 6'x2'x2' galvanized water troughs containing the ? ? and ? ?.

This has turned out to be a bigger job than I have time for. The turtles are too big to live in water troughs and their water needs to be changed about every other day. This involves netting out the mosquito fish, and draining the water out a valve at the bottom of each tank, then taking my shop vac to suck up the rest of the debris that didn't go out the drain.

Is there any way to have an in line filter that will take water out of each trough, filter it then put it back into each trough?

 

[Toddrickfl1]

Yvonne here's an old post I made. This might give you some ideas.

Diy pond or large aquarium filter.

Decided to make my own filter canister for my pond and eliminate the two canisters filters im using. I figured I post a thread about it in case anybody else wants to try it. Supplies: 5 gallon bucket with lid. 1 bulk head adaptor. 2 pvc elbows Small piece of light diffuser or some kind of...

tortoiseforum.org

 

[Yvonne G]

Thank you. I have a filter like that for my 600 gallon snapper trough except the water goes in at the bottom, filters up through the material then out the top. But I was hoping there was a way to tie all four troughs together, one filter. But I guess it's a pipe dream.

 

[Toddrickfl1]

Hmm, I see. It could be done but would require a lot of work any way that I can think of. You could get 4 pumps. Have trough #1 pumping into 2, 2 into 3, 3 into 4, and 4 into a large garbage can filter that flows back into trough #1. You would have probably have to periodically clean your pumps to make sure they all have equal flow though.

 

[Paschendale52]

I would imagine if you do the same thing except with a larger bucket/pump and tie the intakes together it could work pretty well. You would just want to tie the 4 inputs together, and split the output of the filter to each of the tanks as equally as possible. Adding a manifold that runs to all the tanks to keep water levels even would just need to be large enough to handle the flow rate for leveling the systems.

 

[NorCal tortoise guy]

If you could get the tanks to different elevations you could use siphon pipes to go from one tank to another and then pump from the bottom tank and return to the top tank.

 

[Yvonne G]

Thank you both. Making sure the water flowing back into the tanks evenly has been my sticking point. Food for thought!

 

[mark1]

i've used both methods suggested , both have worked well ..... the water leveling method is pretty critical , depending on the level your pulling the water from , a failure of that system can drain a tank which would be catastrophic to fish , and in a winter like ours here , to the turtles ..... a large overflow is what i've come to use , and i've had even that get clogged with leaves and drain a pond completely .......

 

[Chubbs the tegu]

I think @wellington would recommend an UG filter ?

 

[mark1]

not sure what it would technically be called , but i would consider using the existing drains to pull the water from , enclose a large area of where the drain is on the inside with some sort of box/covering made of matala filter media from coarse to fine ....... you could throw some gravel , lava rock or ceramic media on it if you were so inclined , would make a great mechanical and biological pre-filter ........

 

[wellington]

I think @wellington would recommend an UG filter ?

NOT!