Good evening all. Today while I was staring at my tank, loathing the under powered Penn Plax Cascade 1500 filter I run on my 75, I decided that something had to change. I needed more power, higher turnover rate, more mechanical filtering. So I decided to do something about it. Enter the Big Homer. Using the homer bucket from home depot, a special air tight lid for said bucket, and various hoses and fittings I created a canister filter that should be more than enough for my uses.
I installed a bulkhead on the top of the lid with a 1 inch barb fitting. This is the intake for the filter. I installed an equal sized bulkhead on the side of the bucket near the bottom at the same level as the intake for the pump using the same size barb fitting. Then using pvc elbows I created the inlet and outlet that actually go in to the tank complete with a strainer for the inlet and a strainer used as a diffuser on the outlet. I also used 1 inch barb fittings for these pieces. The pump is a 700 gph pond pump I found at my LFS marked down to 34.99 because of a damaged box (SCORE!!!). The pump came with 1 inch inlet and 1/2 inch outlet. I'm not sure why. But I was able to purchase a threaded 1 inch barb fitting for the outlet of the pump to keep all of the plumbing simple. I plumbed everything with 1 inch black vinyl tubing and let it rip.
I let it run on my back porch for about an hour to ensure that there were no leaks and then called it quits for the evening. The next step is filter media. I plan on using thick poly on top for mechanical, lava rocks for bio, and more poly on the bottom to keep the rocks from going into the pump. I'm not going to run any carbon because my tank is planted. I'll be sure to update when it actually goes on the tank.
Costs: (rounded)
Bucket-$2
Lid-$7.25
Pump-$35
PVC fittings-$60
Vinyl-$20
Total-$125 ish
I understand that you can buy a decent canister filter for this price however, this setup should go toe to toe with an FX6, eheim 2262, or any other big canister at a fraction of the cost. Enjoy and thank for viewing!
I installed a bulkhead on the top of the lid with a 1 inch barb fitting. This is the intake for the filter. I installed an equal sized bulkhead on the side of the bucket near the bottom at the same level as the intake for the pump using the same size barb fitting. Then using pvc elbows I created the inlet and outlet that actually go in to the tank complete with a strainer for the inlet and a strainer used as a diffuser on the outlet. I also used 1 inch barb fittings for these pieces. The pump is a 700 gph pond pump I found at my LFS marked down to 34.99 because of a damaged box (SCORE!!!). The pump came with 1 inch inlet and 1/2 inch outlet. I'm not sure why. But I was able to purchase a threaded 1 inch barb fitting for the outlet of the pump to keep all of the plumbing simple. I plumbed everything with 1 inch black vinyl tubing and let it rip.
I let it run on my back porch for about an hour to ensure that there were no leaks and then called it quits for the evening. The next step is filter media. I plan on using thick poly on top for mechanical, lava rocks for bio, and more poly on the bottom to keep the rocks from going into the pump. I'm not going to run any carbon because my tank is planted. I'll be sure to update when it actually goes on the tank.
Costs: (rounded)
Bucket-$2
Lid-$7.25
Pump-$35
PVC fittings-$60
Vinyl-$20
Total-$125 ish
I understand that you can buy a decent canister filter for this price however, this setup should go toe to toe with an FX6, eheim 2262, or any other big canister at a fraction of the cost. Enjoy and thank for viewing!
tbh I would rather build my own filter as well, then you can tailor it to yoy your specific needs.