DIY canister filter

I once spent over $100 on a diy canister filter. It worked, but it was very difficult to maintain. I ended up trashing it. DIY for filteration is usually a waste of time and money. (Some DIY Sumps turn out quite nice though) Most filters sold on the market work excellent and are a great value.

Filstars are good value and I hear Jebo's are gaining popularity quickly also.
 
The Jebo 828, 838 (different colors & AKA Odyssea CSF4) is an excellent filter. It is of supposed German design. The Jebo company is a conglomerate of Chinese, Canadian and German partners. Other filters by Jebo such as the 809 are highly regarded as well.

Though Jebo has a somewhat tarnished track record thusfar in the US due to some lighting issues, their filters are well received globally. Many of their filters have been in use for 3-4 years with no issues.

I love mine! Of course I love my Fluvals and Kangdes too! I've had no problems with any of them. However, I prefer the overall design, quality of manufacture, ease of assembly and operation of the Jebo. Cost of only $40 wasn't bad either.
 
Snowboarder2711 said:
You guys should check this out and let me know what you think of it. It sounds pretty good, but do you think it will be worth it.
Click to expand...

The good news is that these 'modular' style filters work even better than canister filters, because there is essentially no way for the water to bypass the filter media like it can with the tray media in a canister. The bad news is that the pressure drop across the 'modular' filters made for drinking water use, at the kind of flow rate you're going to want to run on an aquarium, forces you to use a seriously strong pump if you intend to push enough water through the drinking water filter to be useful.

Pentair Aquatics actually makes a series of 'modular' filter bodies that are tailored for aquarium use i.e. higher flow rates with lower pressure drops.

http://www.cloudytanks.com/reviews/canisters/rainbow.htm

I run a 'single' sized lineup on my 55 gal tank. I started out with a Mag 7 pump, and wound up upgrading to a Mag 12 to generate more pressure.
 
Another thing to think about for DIY projects is electrical consumption costs.

I have a spreadsheet that I created about 6 months ago to calculate the electrical costs for my fish room. Here is some of the data I have at hand-

Filstar XP1- 250gph- 13 watts- yearly operation cost- $10.45
Filstar XP2- 300gph- 16w- $12.86
Filstar XP3- 350gph- 19w- $15.27
Eheim 2026- 251gph- 25w- $20.09

Aquaclear Powerhead 50- 270gph- 12w- $9.64

Rio Plus 2100 - 692gph- 37w- $29.73
Quiet One 4000- 1017gph- 50w- $40.18

I don’t use my pumps much anymore. I only use the Rio pump when I do water changes.

I also estimated-
Mag7- 700gph- 70 watts- $56.25
Mag12-1200gph- 110 watts- $88.39
 
Well in truth the wattage rating of the pump and the actual power consumption only co-incide at the 'peak' of the pump curve. With low pressure canister filters, the pumps are engineered to operate at the 'peak' thus they consume something close to their rated wattage all the time. But with high pressure pumps and cartridge / modular filters, the pumps are typically operating at much lower actual flow rates than their maximum rating (i.e. my Mag 7 ran at 250gph = 40% flow, and my Mag 12 runs at 300gph = 25% flow when feeding my Pentair filter modules). Thus under this combination of actual flow and pressure, the pump motors aren't consuming anywhere near their maximum rated power. They're still more expensive to run for the same given flow rate though compared to a canister filter, because of the much higher pressures involved, but the margin is more like a 50-100% increase versus the 500% increase your analysis implies.
 
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I think most of us at some point tried a DIY filter ,I also tried it and trashed it and have gone ahead with the real filters that are easy to use and most of all easy to maintain,but the thrill of making another one is still driving me to use my wifes old pressure cooker in to a canister filter in the near future :p:
 
DIY filter

Thanks guys, unfortunatly I already started, and have run into quite a few bumps, and should have just bought a filter. I have probably spent more money than an actuall filter. Good experiment I guess. :sad:
 
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