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Post by bear24 on Mar 23, 2006 13:07:10 GMT -5
Hey all what filters do you use to filter your croc water? I am thinking of using a fluval 4 or just making a sump for cheapness. I was also wondering if anybody has eggs incubating I don't know for sure but I don't believe anybody has bred crocodillians in SK yet.
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Post by Ryan Wunsch on Mar 23, 2006 15:39:38 GMT -5
Depending on their size, I either just make do with water changes, use a fluval type, or have built my own.
Crocodillians regurgitate the hair on any food they eat that has hair, and that along with their hardened faeces can clog a filter pretty easily (in the case of a larger specimen, and those small ones do tend to get large after a few years). Standard Fluval types should work for a smaller caimen (less than 2') I would think.
For the large caimen cage in the basement, what I did (when we still kept it, I traded it to a friend almost a year ago) was to use a container as a resevoir beside his pool. In the resevoir, I had a pump which pumped water into his pool, and in his pool I had a hose that let the water out into the resevoir at a certain level. It was basically a continuous ebb and flow system.
I also put a heater into this resevoir, which heated his water without the risk of him breakig or eating the heater. Most all of the floaties would drain through the hose, and into this smaller resevoir, and that was all of the water i would have to change.
When he had built up "sinkers", I would drain his water with a sump pump, and give him a water change. This was a very good way to recover the teeth that they continually lose and regrow also.
I see we have a member with a lot more alligator and crocodile experience than I have however, hopefully he will become active on this forum soon - - hint hint Mr. Fraser!!!
Ryan
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Post by shawnfraser on Apr 2, 2006 12:07:35 GMT -5
The pools in the croc cages we have at Reptile World are concrete with drains for cleaning - this works but uses a lot of water. We recently added a filter to the large alligator cage - we routed the PVC through a rain barrel with foam from a mattress. On top of the foam is a sump that runs the water through copper pipe wrapped in heat tape. This provides mechanical and biological filtration as well a raising the water temp. in the pool. The filter seems to be working quite well, reducing the number of complete water changes and raising the pool temp. by a few degrees.. The alligator spends a lot of time sitting with his head near (or under) the returning water. When I am refilling the Nile crocodiles pool (which does not have a filter) they will all try to get their heads under the spout and snap at the water. The dominant male will often chase the other two away and take up position under the flowing water. Since the addition of the filter I have noticed subtle yet positive changes in the alligators demeanor. This is probably in part due to the slight temp. increase in the pool, although heat is also provided by three 250 watt heat lamps and a space heater (in winter). I believe that the water flowing and splashing into the cage provides stimulation and that this is a good form of "enrichment" for crocodilian cages.
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alex
Active Member
Posts: 91
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Post by alex on Apr 3, 2006 8:03:59 GMT -5
My turtles also eat incoming water, as do a few of my snakes if I pour it from any height
I (and Colin, on his caiman) use Eheim 2260's, which work well for smallish bodies of water and keeping in a room of your house. They're easy to clean and maintain, and you can get Hydor inline heaters that work extremely well and are removed from the enclosure so no one can eat them. If you have a small body of water (I have it on 250 gal, it can go a fair bit higher than that) and don't wish to makey our own, I love eheims over all other brands of canister filters. Oddly, they're cheaper to get over Ebay and bring into Canada than they are to buy within Canada. I also like working UV sterilisers into my filter systems, but that's because I have never had so many skin problems in my aquatic reptiles as I have since I moved to Saskatchewan, I think they didn't like getting used to hard groundwater either.
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