Need help on filter pipe

**Swifty** · 15th Jan 2016, 01:14

Hi guys,

My terrapin of about 4 years have been biting and pulling out the plastic tube/pipe from the submerged pump, which disallows the filter to work cus it can't pump water up to the filter. To give you an idea, its a Dophin overhead filter. Anyone faced this problem before and have a solution to that?

**fireblade** · 15th Jan 2016, 09:34

you might need to change pump or filter...
or totally remove the filter and change water more frequent... that is what I did to my PNT... remove all the filter and change water more often

**Swifty** · 15th Jan 2016, 10:10

Oh no.. But I feel that's a lot of water wastage and takes a lot more effort to maintain a 40 gal tank.

**fireblade** · 15th Jan 2016, 10:33

maybe can show us a picture?
how about using an internal power head ?

**Swifty** · 15th Jan 2016, 11:06

This is how my tank looks like.

This is the damage my terrapin did to the pipe.

**fireblade** · 15th Jan 2016, 11:14

one why is to cage your pump maybe with egg crate and protect the hose with another hose....

**Swifty** · 15th Jan 2016, 11:27

Oh right! Putting egg crate around the pump. Gotta get the crate and glue, but like that it will be permanently stuck to the tank

Protect the hose with another hose sounds good? Smth that my terrapin cant bite onto right?

Or should I change the hose altogether to a rubber hose? Or should I get another type of filter that will not give any chance for that to happen?

**Urban Aquaria** · 16th Jan 2016, 15:07

The DIY plastic egg crate cage around the pump is a common way to prevent terrapins from damaging the piping. You don't need to use glue, just plastic zip-ties will work, easier to remove and reconfigure too.

An alternative is to use a rigid plastic piping (most LFS sell them) as the main pipe, then connect it to the pump and filter with short sections of aquarium hose.

**Swifty** · 17th Jan 2016, 23:40

Thanks all, I bought a new OHF with rigid plastic piping so that my terrapin cannot bite it anymore

**fireblade** · 18th Jan 2016, 09:23

don't be too happy yet..
you need to be careful that the terrapin might shift or push the pip and end up a flooded room if you did not secure the pump properly.