I recently had a thread about cleaning my biomedia. Through others input, I decided I needed to get a canister filter of some kind to clean out the mulm that's built up over the last year in the scrubbies in my sump. I looked all around, and tried to find some economically (i.e. cheaply) priced Ocean Clear's or Magnum 350's, but no such luck.
I already had a Little Giant 2-MD-HC (~475 gph) pump at home which I wasn't using, so I figured I'd build myself a simple canister filter. I got a 24" length of 4" pvc, a rounded cap for one end, and a threaded cap (cleanout cap, so that I can open it up to clean/swap media) for the other. I drilled a hole for a 3/4" bulkhead in each end, and then siliconed in a threaded bulkhead. I then attached a 3/4" hose barb fitting to each bulkhead. Before I glued the rounded end cap on, I inserted a cut-to-fit piece of plastic eggcrate, to serve as a baseplate and to prevent the media from clogging up the exit bulkhead.
I then got a length of 3/4" ID braided pvc hose, and ran a 5' length from the sump to the pump, then a 12" length from the pump to the top (cleanout) end of the canister, then a 5' length from the bottom of the canister back to the sump. I have not filled it with media yet, but I did just do a test run, and it works awesome! The flow is very strong through the filter, there aren't any leaks, and it should work very well as a part-time filter to clean biomedia (or perhaps an emergency canister for a hospital tank, etc).
Anyway, here's some pics. I should have taken a video of it running, but pics will suffice.
What do you guys think?
I already had a Little Giant 2-MD-HC (~475 gph) pump at home which I wasn't using, so I figured I'd build myself a simple canister filter. I got a 24" length of 4" pvc, a rounded cap for one end, and a threaded cap (cleanout cap, so that I can open it up to clean/swap media) for the other. I drilled a hole for a 3/4" bulkhead in each end, and then siliconed in a threaded bulkhead. I then attached a 3/4" hose barb fitting to each bulkhead. Before I glued the rounded end cap on, I inserted a cut-to-fit piece of plastic eggcrate, to serve as a baseplate and to prevent the media from clogging up the exit bulkhead.
I then got a length of 3/4" ID braided pvc hose, and ran a 5' length from the sump to the pump, then a 12" length from the pump to the top (cleanout) end of the canister, then a 5' length from the bottom of the canister back to the sump. I have not filled it with media yet, but I did just do a test run, and it works awesome! The flow is very strong through the filter, there aren't any leaks, and it should work very well as a part-time filter to clean biomedia (or perhaps an emergency canister for a hospital tank, etc).
Anyway, here's some pics. I should have taken a video of it running, but pics will suffice.
What do you guys think?
