We have a turtle that someone gave to us for a pet. We call her Carlita.
Carlita came to us in a 10 gallon glass aquarium. She seemed very cramped in that after a while so we moved her into a blue kiddie pool. The kiddie pool was big enough, sure… but it was a pain to clean since we didn’t have any kind of filtration.
Pet Turtle Pond With DIY Filter
Now Carlita lives in a 200 gallon galvanized stock tank with a home made bucket filter. Follow along to see how the bucket filter was made.
This was the original pond for Carlita the Turtle.
Below you can see the two buckets. One is a standard 5 gallon and the other is a 4 gallon bucket. The soda crate has had a circle cut out of it for the grate in the filter.
The grate was attached to the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket with zip ties. The ties go through little holes that were drilled in the bottom of the bucket around the larger opening.
The top bucket was filled with lava rocks
(I should have rinsed them first… notice the red water in the last photo)
The buckets are not attached in any way except for gravity and friction. The weight of the rocks keeps the top bucket nicely in place.
The pump pulls water in from tank and pushes it up through the rocks for filtration. The filtered water rises and falls over the top rim of the bucket.
A second soda crate was used as a float for the turtle.
This crate has a piece of closed cell foam under to keep it afloat.
Thanks for looking. Happy building!
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I’ve got 2 14-year old aquatic turtles and as they’ve grown their tanks have gotten bigger and harder to clean. I’ve been blessed that the last 2 places I lived had separate tubs/showers, so I showered and the boys got the tub.
Now, I don’t have that advantage. My only option is to put them outside. When they were in glass tanks, filters (fish tank type) NEVER kept the water clean. So I was still emptying all the water, wiping the tank interior, than refilling (lots of water expense and time). I have nowhere in the house to put them near sinks.
I understand that the filter keeps the water flowing, which is necessary, but how does it keep the drum clean? Aren’t you just moving dirty water eventually? When “santa” brought these turtles to my son, I NEVER expected them to live past a few months….. LOL Now, I can’t seem to part with them at a local sanctuary, so I need to figure out how to give them a decent, clean habitat. Thanks for your help. I thought this was ingenious, I’m just not understanding. (BTW, I have the blue kiddie pool set up right now…. but still emptying/refilling to keep clean.)
The “dirt” gets trapped in the filter. The biological filtering from the bacteria in the filter helps keep the water healthy for the fish and turtles. You will need to clean it every now and then, but it’s a pretty good system for an outdoor pond like this.
What size pump was used?
I do not remember exactly. I do remember buying a bigger pump after running this for a while. I think the newer pump moved 900 gallons per hour, but I think that was a bit overkill. Too bad I didn’t put those details in the post originally since my memory about those things are so bad LOL