That stand was kind of scaring me to lol...Do you have a planer or portable planer or somehting? and wha size did you plane the wood down to? btw looks amazing
Plywood tank build
- Thread starter tthanatoss
- Start date
I have a week or so to kill while I wait for my sealer to come in so I decided to go ahead and start working on my filters. I decided right from the beginning I was going to go the cannister route because I want everything to be in tank. I've been reading every post I can find on DIY cannisters and some guys are pretty inventive. Everyone talks about pressure and head and if the pump is before or after the filter.
Anyway while there's some good ideas on the net I couldn't find anything that specifically suited my needs so I went to the walmart and made a real mess of the pet department. I opened a bunch of pumps there and later at home took an old one I had apart. Here's what I've come up with.
I'm planning on use 4" white pvc pipe and building two of these with a 300 GPH pump in each. One for each end of the tank. The spray bars will meet in the middle and give that whole wall of water effect. The tank is 30" tall so I'll have 5 feet of cannister. Haven't done the math so I don't know exactly how many gallons of filter that provides but it seems it would be adequate for a freshwater tank. Also this set up will allow me to filter from both ends of the aquarium.
Anyway while there's some good ideas on the net I couldn't find anything that specifically suited my needs so I went to the walmart and made a real mess of the pet department. I opened a bunch of pumps there and later at home took an old one I had apart. Here's what I've come up with.
I'm planning on use 4" white pvc pipe and building two of these with a 300 GPH pump in each. One for each end of the tank. The spray bars will meet in the middle and give that whole wall of water effect. The tank is 30" tall so I'll have 5 feet of cannister. Haven't done the math so I don't know exactly how many gallons of filter that provides but it seems it would be adequate for a freshwater tank. Also this set up will allow me to filter from both ends of the aquarium.
Nice that must have took a lot of hard work but it looks amazing and well worth the time...and i must agree sanding is the worst!
so the canister will be in the tank?
what do you plan to use for media for mechanical/bio? i could see using a big sponge
like the ac110 sponge for mechanical and ceramic rings for the bio
i would keep in mind cleaning the filter, if its to hard to brake down your gonna hate this thing.
im sure it will filter the tank well. the idea is sound,
just make sure you can service it!
looking at the design the canister would have to be well seal in order to have the flow leave via the spray bar vs the lid, or shoot back out through the intake
great thread btw
what do you plan to use for media for mechanical/bio? i could see using a big sponge
like the ac110 sponge for mechanical and ceramic rings for the bio
i would keep in mind cleaning the filter, if its to hard to brake down your gonna hate this thing.
im sure it will filter the tank well. the idea is sound,
just make sure you can service it!
looking at the design the canister would have to be well seal in order to have the flow leave via the spray bar vs the lid, or shoot back out through the intake
great thread btw
I've been working on these cannister filters for a couple of days now and after a succesful sink test I'm confident that they are going to work like I want them to. I started by sewing a small mountain of dollar store scrub pads together into a three chambered cylindrical bag with a needle and some fishing line. A 1/2 spray bar will run vertically up the length of the cannister inside the center chamber of the bag. Water will spray out and be filtered by the walls of the bag itself and pour into the two surrounding chambers which will be filled with lava rock. The pump continuouly fills the cannister and over flows into the 3/4" spray bar (which I still have to make) and pours back into the tank.
During my sink test I managed to overflow the cannister with out having yet glued or siliconed any of the components so even working around a number of leaks I got sufficient pressure to do the job.
The idea is that the center spray bar will agitate the water the bag will act as a mechanical filter and the lava rock as bio.
As far as cleaning I think I will add a add an external valve near the bottom of the cannister so when I lift it out I can drain the water via the valve, screw off the threaded cap on top, then the media which is all contained in the bag just lifts out.
During my sink test I managed to overflow the cannister with out having yet glued or siliconed any of the components so even working around a number of leaks I got sufficient pressure to do the job.
The idea is that the center spray bar will agitate the water the bag will act as a mechanical filter and the lava rock as bio.
As far as cleaning I think I will add a add an external valve near the bottom of the cannister so when I lift it out I can drain the water via the valve, screw off the threaded cap on top, then the media which is all contained in the bag just lifts out.
For a pre filter I figured I would just use a scrub pad over the inlet on the pump, hold it in place with a rubber band.
