My DIY bio tube filter...thing.

[Nyquil Junkie]

I forgot a pic f the 3" pipe to show how well the scrubbies fit.

 

[Nyquil Junkie]

WOW where did ya get 4" clear pipe??

 

[duanes]

Got clear PVC at a local Milwaukee plumbing supply dealer(Modular Piping). It's actually 6". Think it was around $15-$20ft. Expensive yes, but I felt I needed to see the process, and it still came in way under the cost of a small sized commercial FIB when finished, and was simple to build. The plans came from an issue of FAMA from the 80s or 90s.

 

[Nyquil Junkie]

The clear stack is trippy, I'd pay that for a clear pipe.

 

[falcoholic]

great job.. i will try to make one..

 

[Lil_Stinker]

Pretty spiffy

 

[Redearsunfish]

I really like that,...

 

[tscharf]

dude that looks awesome, im deff gunna build one when i get a lasrger tank

 

[bgcoop8784]

I had one really similar in a 75 gallon for a long time, just had a piece of 3" pvc ran across the inside bottom almost the whole length of the tank with a powerhead attached and a sponge prefilter, mine was full of ceramic rings, the sponge prefilter took care of the mech. filtration. coated the pipe with silicone and gravel and it blended in great with the substrate, hid the powerhead and sponge with a piece of slate, had a lot of people look at my tank and ask where the filter was, really cleaned everything up nice. I will be building another one for my 55gallon, and one for my 150 if i wasn't using the fx5 already.

 

[kenpur]

I had one really similar in a 75 gallon for a long time, just had a piece of 3" pvc ran across the inside bottom almost the whole length of the tank with a powerhead attached and a sponge prefilter, mine was full of ceramic rings, the sponge prefilter took care of the mech. filtration. coated the pipe with silicone and gravel and it blended in great with the substrate, hid the powerhead and sponge with a piece of slate, had a lot of people look at my tank and ask where the filter was, really cleaned everything up nice. I will be building another one for my 55gallon, and one for my 150 if i wasn't using the fx5 already.

I was thinking of building one of these to use in conjunction with my FX5. "T" the output and sent one back to the tank for flow and the other thru this bio chanber. You would have all the mechanical filtration already done by the FX5.

I do have a technical question. Isn't a bio filter runnng most efficiently when water is "trickeling" thru the bio material and not having the bio material completely sumberged in the water?