DIY canister filter

DIY Filter

There will be some advantages to mine though. After I bought my first container for the filter my friend ended up having one that he was not using. So now I have two. I had to power-heads before I thought about this project each pumping 300 gph, so I am using those that are coming from the undergravel to the canister filters. The two connect together and go back to the tank with one hose. I found out the hard way how long silicone takes to dry and this is why my project is not quite done, everything is ready but the silicone. What do you guys think about this and are there any other ways that I could improve it even more. What I'm putting in the canister's are foam, polyester, carbon, and biomax. Any extra tips would be much appreciated.
 
yup, a pump which is capable of producing significantly more pressure than your powerhead style pumps ... the problem is that the powerheads flow rate might be 300gph into an open hose, but they'll quit pushing water altogether when the back pressure of your canisters reaches about 2psi = 6ft of head. Also, the use of a foam pre-filter over the pump's intake fitting really helps to avoid 'fouling' the surface of your cartridge filter's media with uneaten fish food etc. - thus extending the time interval for having to open up (and later re-seal) your cartridge filter. Since adding a foam pre-filter to my submerged Mag 7 and later Mag 12 pumps, I can now go a month easy before having to open up my filter modules versus every two weeks prior to using the foam pre-filters. You do have to rinse out the foam pre-filters on a weekly basis, though, but this takes like 5 extra minutes during a water change.

PS even with the powerhead pumps, please keep us informed in regard to the relative water clarity you achieve with 'zero bypass' filtering. If your results are the same as mine, you should be able to read a newspaper through your tank --- the LONG way !
 
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