Bear with me...'advanced' gravel vac

[KaiserSousay]

Alright Kaiser, you win

No winners or losers on this.
Just some things will work and other things, no matter how cool it would be, just don`t.
From a number of your other postings, on other threads, my only suggestion would be stop trying to do 5 things at the same time.
You want a sump, fine.
Concentrate on building your overflow and put the sump into operation.
Once you have that as a base you can see how much room you have for that fuge.
Then play with your plumbing to see if you can get a cleaning system to work.
But first things first.
Often hard to get started when your head is full of a bunch of things you want to accomplish.
Trouble is if you spend all your time planning, it never gets built.

 

[Moloch]

Alright Kaiser, you win

No winners or losers on this.
Just some things will work and other things, no matter how cool it would be, just don`t.
From a number of your other postings, on other threads, my only suggestion would be stop trying to do 5 things at the same time.
You want a sump, fine.
Concentrate on building your overflow and put the sump into operation.
Once you have that as a base you can see how much room you have for that fuge.
Then play with your plumbing to see if you can get a cleaning system to work.
But first things first.
Often hard to get started when your head is full of a bunch of things you want to accomplish.
Trouble is if you spend all your time planning, it never gets built.

Oh yeah I know what you mean. I get into flurries where one idea leads to another to another to another. I then spend a few days thinking about all of them, which ones are reasonable, which can be combined & accomplished at the same time logically & which just need to be scrapped. This time it was sump > in place gravel vac > powerhead vac > refugium > canister fed sump > magnum250 vac > (finally) closed loop pump gravel vac.

I scrapped canister/sump combo when I realized its not really reasonable, scrapped the sump when I realized the hazards of using one on a planted tank, scrapped the refugium when I realized it has the same problems as a sump AND I can't use a tank large enough to make it effective, scrapped the magnum250 vac when I tried to use it and didn't like it...etc etc.

I think tonight I'm going to go pick up some 1" pvc (the pump has 1" mpt) and see if the pump will work like I want it to with simple plumbing. If it does then it'll be a few short steps to turning it into a filter I could even hard plumb the whole thing to the tank with pvc and put a quick disconnect on the output to attach vinyl hose to. Then I could leave the thing running or turn it on when desired for water polishing. Basically the same thing as a magnum250 with the micron pad, except no bleaching of the micron pad, just replacing filter floss when needed.


Thanks for your input, hopefully I can get this working tonight and I'll report back

 

[duke33]

Whew! What a read. Good stuff guys. A little redunant at times but I see what your trying to do. A filter is a filter. Clean it or throw it away. I hope you find a cure for all of us.

 

[Moloch]

Yeah I'm the king of redundant rambling

I'm working on it. I'm just tired of having to hook something up, attach a bag or a pump or a sink or ANYTHING etc etc just to clean the crap out of my tank. I just want something I can turn on, use, turn off, be done. I really think I've got it with the closed loop pump/filter floss, I just need to get it implemented. I ended up not making it to lowes tonight so it'll be tomorrow or thursday before I get around to it.

 

[Moloch]

Hey kaiser, whats the housing you used for your filter there?

 

[KaiserSousay]

Hey kaiser, whats the housing you used for your filter there?

If you mean the white water filter, it is a GE Whole House unit.
$20 most places I`ve looked.
The cartridges come in 2 types.
Neither very expensive from wal mart. Like $7-9 for a 2 pack.
I use the 20 micron, rust/sediment for cleaning.
I tried a HOB version, using the 10 micron, taste/odor cartridge.

Not all that practical.
Kind of hard getting it on the tanks back and more trouble taking it off for service.
The only plus was it being dead quiet and having a high flow, 20 micron filter using odds-n-ends I already had.
Ended up leaking from the pump head. The hard line connection between pump and filter was more than likely the reason, since it worked fine as my powered vac system.

 

[Moloch]

Can it be had to fit 1" pvc? And would it work to just simply fill it with floss as a cheaper alternative?

I went to lowes and came up with this out of the PVC fittings section. Its not very practical though, would run about 30 bucks and wouldn't leave me an easy way to access the media.

Right now I'm thinking that my best bet is going to be finding an airtight/watertight container with a sturdy lid and sturdy construction. Drill it and install bulkheads on either side. This way can just leave all the plumbing and the pump in place, pop open the lid on the container and mess with the floss/media.

That whole house unit might do just as good though. How long do those cartridges last you? Have you ever left it running on your tank as a water polisher? It looks like thats what you were doing with it as HOB, how long did it take before you had no flow rate through the micron cartridge?

 

[Moloch]

Alright, I went to lowes and I think I've got it figured out. That same whole house system you're using looks perfect. I think it will work with filter floss if I just make a few slight adaptations...like putting a vinyl tube (pvc wasn't a good fit) from the intake in the lid down to the bottom so that water is pulled back up through the floss.

From there its just some slip/thread adapters to bring the filter out to 1" piping and a bunch of 90* elbows and a ball valve. Correct me if I'm wrong...but I should be able to put a ball valve before the filters intake, to change the cartridge without massive water spill I can close the valve and run the pump until its pulled all the water out of the filter and then take the housing off? Would I need a ball valve on the other side as well so that water doesn't back-flow once the filter is open and create a siphon back through the pump?

Either way this is going to cost about 38-45$ on top of the 45$ I spent on the pump. So its not the CHEAPEST way to DIY a filter, but I think its perfect for what I need and will be effective for years...there's really no reason for it to ever stop working unless the pump fails

I think when I first set it up I'll try using the filter cartridges they sell, but I think in the interest of cost filter floss might end up being better...

 

[KaiserSousay]

Good luck.
I`ve had the same, 20 micron filter cartridges for almost a year.
After awhile just a rinse won`t get them clean, so an over night bleach bath soak is being done.
Just me, but that trying to use floss seems like more work than it would be worth to me.
As far as cost goes, depending on the pump used you end up with a high flow, silent, 20 micron filtering system.
The Magnum 350 is what, $75-90???
Anyway, pretty sure you will like the way it will perform for you.

 

[Moloch]

Yeah the idea with the floss is to avoid bleaching and make dealing with the filter media easier. Unless I'm mistaken the stuff is like 4 bucks for a large bag of it which would probably last quite a while. I think it would do a good enough job and I wouldn't ever have to bleach it. I could rinse it if I wanted to until that didn't work and then just replace it once its outlived its usefulness.

I'm going to try the 20micron cartridges first. At 8 bucks for a 2 pack I could see them being just as cost-effective without bleaching them to prolong use. The only thing I'm worried about is how often I would need to clean them. I think with a cartridge full of floss I could probably get an easy month out of the filter before any maintenance would be required. This is assuming I'd be using for vacuuming every couple of days and to polish the water after each weekly water change. If I can get the same amount of use out of the pre-made cartridges and only need to replace them every couple of months then I'd just stick with those.

At foster&smith a magnum350 is 100, pro is 120, so yeah I'm only saving a few bucks doing it my way. But, I think it'll be easier to figure out attaching a siphon hose to PVC than it will to whatever output the magnum uses, and I get the satisfaction of DIY. On top of that, I had already purchased the pump when I intended to build a sump. The flow-rate will be about twice that of what magnum is advertised at, so if their specs don't account for reduced flow through 6ft of head then it'l be SIGNIFICANTLY higher. And, if/when I do end up building a sump, I can decide if I just want to take this filter apart and then I'd already have a pump for it.

For the most part I just needed a project to work on, I haven't done any sort of DIY filter yet and I wanted to build something that meets my needs EXACTLY rather than trying to make a product work like I want it to even though its not really designed for it.

Hopefully in the next week or so I'll come up with the extra 40 bucks to put the thing together.