Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2017 2:39 pm Re: RES may have drowned
I think it is the strainer coming off easily, just as a design. I had a similar incident a few weeks ago, where the strainer came off, but thankfully the turtles did not stick their head in there. intake isn't big enough for them to get their heads stuck in anyways. What did get sucked in though was lots of the fish in the tank, and I noticed when I went to do maintenance to the canister that a fish was actually swimming on the side of the filter tray. Upon taking all of the trays out, I found around 15 fish, some adults and some babies, swimming inside of the filter! They had been sucked up, but thankfully, as the intake works on siphon, they did not get sucked up into the impeller.
When my turtles were babies, I also had a turtle get its head stuck in the intake of a HOB filter, but I watched it happen. I was running it without a strainer, as the strainer was damaged, but luckily I was able to remove her right away. And just a few days ago, trouble struck again - one escaped the tank! I came home to find only 1 turtle in its tank - I've had this tank for 3 months now, and I thought it was escape proof. Fearing the worst, I frantically searched the whole room, then slowly searched everywhere outside of the room. Eventually found him under the couch. He was dusty, and I had no idea how long he was down there, but he was fine.
Crazy, crazy pets, RES are lol.