In need of design ideas for a big filter tube...

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Racersk

Racersk

Piranha
MFK Member
Apr 22, 2010
1,147
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81
Covington
Ok, so at my sisters garage sale, I found an acrylic tube that is HUGE and FREE!

Here's what it looks like, with a standard 5 gallon bucket for comparison:

cylinder.jpg


Like 10" diameter and 60" tall!

Holds water-checked it before I left the sale...:D

Also there is another one, that has no bottom on it if it'll help with my quest!



I want to create a filter out of this bad boy! I got it under the idea of a Beta fish tank, stick a bubble tube in there the full length would give that little guy plenty of filtration! But now I'm thinking along the lines of a mega filter for a goldfish/koi/pleco tank I am setting up along with a heated African Polypterous/knife/Kribensis tank.

Both tanks are 75 gallons each, I have a Cascade 1200 for one tank, with a Magnum 300 and 40gph powerhead/sponge filter to help with redundancy.

I have a pond pump (maybe 150gph) and several overflow ideas to get the water into this cylinder, but I have no practical experience DIY'ing something of this scale, heck I just found local scrubbies 3 for $1 after a month long local search was coming to a close!

Any thoughts on how to get the best filter I can make out of this thing?

Talk about cool factor, 2 big tanks stacked and lights wrapped around this piece just to the side and big monster happy fish in the tanks!
 
Ahhh man, that is a super find! I thought you should make it into a fish tank at first too, but it's deep and cylindrical shape presents all types of challenges with equipment that will fit it and clean it well. With you setting up (2) 75's it only makes sense to use it as a filter. I'll leave it to someone with more DIY filter experience to give you better suggestions on what to do with it, but I wanted to say good luck and post the filter being built as well. I'd be interested to see what you make.
 
Here are my thoughts after sleeping on it.

'install' it into my shelf I am building for the planned set up.

Install the return pump into the bottom of it, with egg crate like material to keep my media off of the pump.

For bio media, I am really considering plastic shipping strapping *borrowed* from work, this apears to be the same bio floss, just in black not bright blue, and free! Stuff like 2.5-3' deep worth of this. Another seperator- then add filter floss, or polyester batting(same stuff) from the fabric store.

And the top section I saw a very neet idea, an algae scrubber. basic idea is flowing water over a plastic sheet with holes and lighting the heck out of it. I have some hooklatch mat I got for a tank seperator that will work great for this. All I would need to complete this is a flood light bulb, oh waight, I have a heat lamp taking up space on a shelf, it has a big reflector and clamp on it...

The ideas are flowing!

Out of town at the moment, but I'll make a drawing later today and put my thoughts into pictures...
 
Subscribing!!! Get the other tube if you can.

You can make a really sweet SW skimmer. However, I like your idea with using it for a "bucket style" filter. The other tube can make a nice trickle tower. Just glue egg crate to the bottom of it (and then trim it up).
 
totally agree that it would make a great protein skimmer but in freshwater it should still make an awesome filter. great find!
 
I have something very similar and it works great!
First pic (if these go in order) is the empty bio tower on top of the 55 sump I planed to use on my 360 build.
I put egg crate on the bottom with a 2" bulkhead to the 55 sump. I filled the bio tower with a ton of bio balls on top of the bio balls I put plastic peg board to distribute the water evenly over the bio balls. On top of that I put mechanical filtration pad material to catch the big stuff. Here's some more pics:

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CA-Delta;4376691; said:
Pretty cool . Ya' gotta do something with that.
Click to expand...

14 posts................ rookie :grinno: No sharing opinions till at least 100 posts ;) Just say stuff like: "that's neat" or "wish I had something like that" or "Egon's the plumbing god"....... just keep it friendly.
 
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