I was thinking about ways to make essentially a cheap power filter with a large capacity. I have used these before, so I drew a little pic to illustrate.
The filter in this example is a 5 gallon bucket which is placed on a shelf above the level of the top of the aquarium.
The water is pumped out of the tank into the top of the 5 gallon bucket. It flows through the media of choice, up the stand pipe out sleeve then down the stand pipe back into the aquarium. The stand pipe sleeve forces the water to travel through the media before reaching the stand pipe. Illustrated below:
The filter in this example is a 5 gallon bucket which is placed on a shelf above the level of the top of the aquarium.
The water is pumped out of the tank into the top of the 5 gallon bucket. It flows through the media of choice, up the stand pipe out sleeve then down the stand pipe back into the aquarium. The stand pipe sleeve forces the water to travel through the media before reaching the stand pipe. Illustrated below: