Old cloths washing machine as a huge wet dry?

[somefinnfishy]

I'm moving again and want a central setup all 13 I own and the 5 more comming in.
So why wont it work guys?
Would hold a but load of media
It has a water proff tub with a spray bar type filling the motor timmer could be reset to spin it slowly and constantly and it has a built in pump

 

[Darkangel]

Give it a try. I think you will have lots of problems with it but hey thats just my opinion. The problems I see are first of all and most likely contamination from past uses and the products used in the manufacture. These things do not have to use food grade parts and there may be leaching of toxic chemicals. The next potential problem has to do with the motor to spin the tub and pump the water. Neither of those were ever designed to run non stop like you would need them too. For the filter to work properly there would have to be a constant water flow. Lastly would be the huge electrical consumption. Go with your standard system set up and I think you would be much happier.

 

[somefinnfishy]

I'm not so much woried about the past usage as the non food grade plumbing.
The motor could be replaced with a lower amp-rpm motor with a smaller pully.
I know its a strech but interesting anyway.

What would a wet dry that size cost to buy?

 

[Darkangel]

Next to nothing really. The cost of one or two rubbermaid containers. Just out of curiosity here, but how much water are you planing on filtering? That would be one heck of a size filter. If you are going to change out the pump anyways it would be much simpler to just build a sump system.

 

[somefinnfishy]

Like 10 20-29G a couple 55s and a pair of 75s and what ever else I can get my hands on goal 30 tanks to equal on or over a 1000 gallons.

 

[somefinnfishy]

The Idea is to have a 100+ gallon stock tank behind it so it will dump 20G in to the stock tank every 2-3 min.

Besides I would love to be useing that when the aquarium socity does its anual fish room open house tour

 

[AikidoGuy]

wheres slip hes probably got one already built or he saw your idea and is doing it as we speak



just kidding slip!

 

[wiEngineer]

Whail an interesting project, I tink in the end you wouldn't get what you want.

If you wanted to make an unholy large canister, what about getting a 70g food-grade barrel and have the water enter at the top, flow via gravity through the media, and then egress out via some kind of a high-flow pump at the bottom.