Hope all is well.
I would like to start by saying thank you for helping me adjust my initial order and the quick shipping. I am new to the aquarium hobby. I have two turtles, a yellow belly slider and red eared slider in a 125 gallon aquarium tank (filled with roughly 90-100 gallons of water). The turtles are about 5-6 inches and still have a lot of room to grow. I also have 2 small bala sharks, 2 platys, and 3 guppy’s. From time to time I have a few minnows or goldfish as feeder fish. Although all fish are feeder fish in my turtle’s eyes. However, they have spared the other fish for now.
I recently got an Fluval FX6 filter since the 2 internal canister marineland filters were not working very well for my tank. I had to clean and replace 50% or more of my water every week, sometimes sooner. I also did not have any biological filtration. As I research more about the FX6 I came across your video and Pondguru’s (Richard) video on how to improve the FX6 filtration capabilities using BioHome. I have also seen a lot of good reviews for BioHome from multiple people online. So I decided to give it a shot.
I was able to set up my FX6 with just about 5kg of biohome. I had about 100grams left over from the total 5kg I purchased from you. However, I did use a carbon pad in the bottom basket and a fine and polishing pad on the top basket. I use the carbon pad on the bottom manly to protect the filters impeller from anything that might fall through. For the surrounding foams I used the same poret foams available on your site but I bought them somewhere else since the sizes available seemed a bit small for the FX6. I opted for using the coarse 10 PPI and the medium 20 PPI foams. I was a bit concerned that the fine foam might clog up faster and slow the flow. Also, I was planning on using the fluval fine and polishing pad on the top. So far, I am fairly happy with the filter and filter media. I did add both sets of bio balls included in my two orders of biohome. Hoping the bacteria will colonize soon and I will achieve a full cycle or very close to that. I know it is a bit hard to do so in a turtle tank since they are very messy. Maybe in a year or two once the turtles grow a bit more and I have the funds I will add a second filter and more biohome.
I have included a few pictures of my setup below. I did use some of the leftover coarse foam as a pre filter and place it in the intake. I am hoping BioHome and the changes I made to the FX6 will help keep my aquarium and turtles healthy and happy.
***I have included a picture of my tank. I just set up the filter last night and ran out of time for a water change so not the best picture I would say.
