dfreas
February 26th 05, 03:35 PM
Someone has probably thought of this before and done it but I figured I
would share my experience anyway, hopefully it'll give someone an idea
or two. This was a really easy project - from getting the idea, to
drawing the plans, to finding the parts, to actually building the thing
probably only took me three or four hours. And most of that time was
messing with prototypes that had obvious flaws.
The end result is a canister filter that lies horizontally on the back
floor of the tank (in my planted 20g long aquarium you can hardly even
see it), is totally silent even right next to it, and cleans my tank
amazingly well.
At my previous job I had access to a machine shop and was allowed to
use anything out of the scrap pile that I wanted. Their thinking was
that anything I built out of the scraps gave me more experience in
designing stuff and therefore made me more valuable to them. One of my
designs was this filter - but after making it I believe it could be
done without a full machine shop (though it may not be as pretty) the
only essential tool is a drill.
The piece I started with was a piece of pvc stock that someone had used
the lathe to tap out. The result was a six inch long cannister about
four inches outer diameter and 3.5" inner diameter, open on one end and
closed on the other. To make something similar without a lathe just
take a piece of pvc pipe and put an end cap on one end.
I then used the drill press to put a 5/8" hole in the closed end and
used a die set to thread this hole. Then I threaded a plastic tubing
connector into this hole so I would be able to easily take aquarium
tubing on and off of it. (If you're having trouble visualizing this it
looks something like one of these:
http://www.ozoneservices.com/products/OLZ/tubing/images/q-02b.jpg
only mine are dark gray and obviously one end was threaded - you can
pick them up at lowes/home depot really cheap.)
The last step was to make a lid for the other end, drill half a dozen
1/8" holes in it and attach it to the open end of the cannister. Viola,
a canister filter is born...almost.
I bought some cheap filter material and stuffed it in the filter until
it was full (I only wanted mechanical filtration, I was putting it in a
heavily planted tank so chemical filtration is unnecessary.). I also
considered filling it with gravel or foam - I think any media would
work well.
Then I took about three inches of aquarium tubing, plugged one end onto
the tubing tap I had made on one end of the cannister and the other end
of the tubing I plugged into the submersible pump from one of those
miniature waterfalls that you can get at the mall. You know the ones -
a bowl full of rocks or something and water gets pumped up the center
and flows over the rocks. Someone had given me one for a gift a while
back and I never used it and it seemed like a decent pump. The end
result looks something like this (forgive the ascii art):
[ ]______|-------------------------]
[pump] tube | cannister full ] ~~~~
[ ]------| of filter media ] ~~~~ --> water flow -->
|_________________________] ~~~~
The cannister is about 6" long and everything is flat black. It works
*really* well. Since putting it in my water has been crystal clear - I
could read the newspaper through the long side of the tank if I wanted.
I have no idea what the flow rate is...anyone know what a typical flow
rate for one of these submersible fountain pumps is? The total cost for
me was about $4 but that was because I got a lot of the parts free. I
would imagine it can be done fairly cheap though. The most expensive
part being the pump.
Anyway, very cool and very easy to do if you're bored and have some of
the parts already laying around the house. Feel free to email me
questions if you decide to build one for yourself.
-Daniel
would share my experience anyway, hopefully it'll give someone an idea
or two. This was a really easy project - from getting the idea, to
drawing the plans, to finding the parts, to actually building the thing
probably only took me three or four hours. And most of that time was
messing with prototypes that had obvious flaws.
The end result is a canister filter that lies horizontally on the back
floor of the tank (in my planted 20g long aquarium you can hardly even
see it), is totally silent even right next to it, and cleans my tank
amazingly well.
At my previous job I had access to a machine shop and was allowed to
use anything out of the scrap pile that I wanted. Their thinking was
that anything I built out of the scraps gave me more experience in
designing stuff and therefore made me more valuable to them. One of my
designs was this filter - but after making it I believe it could be
done without a full machine shop (though it may not be as pretty) the
only essential tool is a drill.
The piece I started with was a piece of pvc stock that someone had used
the lathe to tap out. The result was a six inch long cannister about
four inches outer diameter and 3.5" inner diameter, open on one end and
closed on the other. To make something similar without a lathe just
take a piece of pvc pipe and put an end cap on one end.
I then used the drill press to put a 5/8" hole in the closed end and
used a die set to thread this hole. Then I threaded a plastic tubing
connector into this hole so I would be able to easily take aquarium
tubing on and off of it. (If you're having trouble visualizing this it
looks something like one of these:
http://www.ozoneservices.com/products/OLZ/tubing/images/q-02b.jpg
only mine are dark gray and obviously one end was threaded - you can
pick them up at lowes/home depot really cheap.)
The last step was to make a lid for the other end, drill half a dozen
1/8" holes in it and attach it to the open end of the cannister. Viola,
a canister filter is born...almost.
I bought some cheap filter material and stuffed it in the filter until
it was full (I only wanted mechanical filtration, I was putting it in a
heavily planted tank so chemical filtration is unnecessary.). I also
considered filling it with gravel or foam - I think any media would
work well.
Then I took about three inches of aquarium tubing, plugged one end onto
the tubing tap I had made on one end of the cannister and the other end
of the tubing I plugged into the submersible pump from one of those
miniature waterfalls that you can get at the mall. You know the ones -
a bowl full of rocks or something and water gets pumped up the center
and flows over the rocks. Someone had given me one for a gift a while
back and I never used it and it seemed like a decent pump. The end
result looks something like this (forgive the ascii art):
[ ]______|-------------------------]
[pump] tube | cannister full ] ~~~~
[ ]------| of filter media ] ~~~~ --> water flow -->
|_________________________] ~~~~
The cannister is about 6" long and everything is flat black. It works
*really* well. Since putting it in my water has been crystal clear - I
could read the newspaper through the long side of the tank if I wanted.
I have no idea what the flow rate is...anyone know what a typical flow
rate for one of these submersible fountain pumps is? The total cost for
me was about $4 but that was because I got a lot of the parts free. I
would imagine it can be done fairly cheap though. The most expensive
part being the pump.
Anyway, very cool and very easy to do if you're bored and have some of
the parts already laying around the house. Feel free to email me
questions if you decide to build one for yourself.
-Daniel