5 gallon bucket filter idea

[Nolapete]

jm1212 That's very ol' skool. That used to be very common place 25-30 years ago.

DrJoe that's the general idea, but more of a HOB/canister than wet/dry. That filter could be de-ghetto'd if he used a sterlite storage drawer set instead.

 

[J0NESI]

man i was just talkin about this a work today with a co-worker this is what i came up with

use a painters bucket that have seals in the lid
drill two holes in the top of the 5g lid
but iam using a old small pool filter for the pump and pvc. the pvc come from and goto the top of the tank no drilling holes in the tank.

 

[Nolapete]

That's pretty cool, but there is a design flaw that allows the water to channel along side of your return pipe and bypass all of your media. If you notice on my design, there is a pipe around the return pipe. The water can ONLY go through this path. Sure, it can still form channels, but is less likely to completely bypass the media.

Yours is easily fixed though. Take a piece of pvc with an endcap on the end and put it over your return. Just make sure that it can't move up enough to block the return. This may require shortening the return pipe inside. The other modification would be to pump the water in all the way to the bottom of the media. That's the only two things I'd change right off to make it more efficient.

 

[J0NESI]

i figured that the bucket would fill with water and the water would cycle around from top to bottom. passing through the media on the way to the bottom, kinda like the ehiem filter i got

 

[Nolapete]

Initially it may, but over time it will channel and find the path of least resistance. Your way will work, but with very little modification it will be more efficient. Overall it's a great design.

I have a design that I'm trying to work out the details on that will cut the channeling out a lot. My goal is to produce this part that could possibly be patented as a kit for making 5 gallon canisters.

 

[J0NESI]

is this what your talkin about

 

[Nolapete]

exactly

 

[J0NESI]

gotcha

 

[Que]

Can I assume you're thinking about this for your biggest tank? It still seems like a huge amount of filtration but what do I know. I guess if you were pushing stocking limits you'd need something huge.

Anyway for input on this subject... I have a bucket that's Oh... maybe 6 gallons that I got from the pet supply store for storing dog food. It has a screw on top which could be made to seal water tight with the use of a big O-ring.

I've also been tossing ideas around in my head for filtration too and I was thinking about using large diameter PVC with screw on type end caps for the media containment. I am curious about using air for water movement because It'd be cheaper than power heads for a multiple tank set up where each tank has it's own air powered filter.

Q

 

[Nolapete]

You'd need an awful lot of air which would require most likely a blower which would consume more power than the powerheads LOL