I set up a 120 gallon stock tank for my turtles last week as they had outgrown their 30 gallon glass tank. I had an Eheim canister on that tank that I really liked, but it was obviously not enough for the big tank, so I set out to make a cheap canister to take up the slack. The design I came up with is cheap and simple, less than $10 in materials not counting the powerhead I already had laying around, and less than an hour for construction time. It saves the hassle of having to generate waterproof seals around hoses in an ordinary DIY canister by actually sitting in the tank itself. It takes up some room, but no more than an overflow tower in an ordinary large tank.
Simplest and cheapest DIY canister filter
- Thread starter Weare
- Start date
The body is 4" PVC, the cap is something I found at Home Depot in the PVC aisle called a 'lawn cap' or something . It's not attached to the body, but lifts off to access the media. The bottom flange is something called a 'toilet flange', also from the PVC aisle. The foot is just a piece of scrap acrylic I had leftover after putting together the tank. I used a saw to cut a hole in the PVC body so that the rubber hose connecting the powerhead enters at an angle. The hose extends in a inch or so, and follows the curve of the tube. The short length of hose is fixed in place with ordinary silicone, and the powerhead is held on with zip ties. There is a shim between the body and the powerhead to hold it at the correct angle. The body is siliconed to the toilet flange, and the flange is siliconed to the acrylic foot, and a few bricks on the foot hold everything in place. The water level in the tank bisects the holes in the green cap. I used a powerhead 802 and it pushes water through at an impressive clip. I'll post actual photographs if anyone is actually interested.