Yet another DIY canister

[Reginald Swift]

Here is how to make your own DIY canister. There has been plenty of threads on this subject before but I believe I am the first to go about it in this matter.

List of materials

Pump of some sort (An external pump is preferred but a powerful powerhead would work as well)
Whole house water filter (The bigger the better)
PVC pipes and miscellaneous fittings (described in article)
PVC shower drain cover (lowes plumbing section)
Filter Media (Bio balls, filter floss, lava rock, sponges, etc)


This is the cap to the whole house filter. As you can see the center hole can accept a 1 inch pvc pipe. This is where the unfiltered water will enter. The square hole is the outtake for filtered water.

In this picture, I have cut a short section of 1 inch pvc that inserts into the center hole on the cap. From there I attached a 1 inch slip to 3/4 threaded adapter. Then I screwed on a 3/4 threaded to slip adapter.

As you can see here, I took a piece of 3/4 pvc, cut to the length of the whole house filter and at one end I drilled 1/2 holes around the radius of the pipe. (Not the best design, looking for ideas if anyone cares to comment)

Here I have inserted the 3/4 inch pipe into the center grove on the bottom on the whole house filter. The holes drilled earlier on the inserted end (The bottom of the filter).

I then dump in my mechanical filtration stage. In my case aquaclear sponge media cut into 1/2 inch squares.

This is the pvc shower drain cover from lowes. I cut the center out to allow the 3/4 pvc slip through.

Slip the shower drain cover over the pipe and compress the sponges down into the filter.

Next I dropped in some bio rings for my biological filtration.

Finally I put in some lava rock and filter floss. Screw the filter cap on which mates the center slip adapter made earlier with the center pipe. I also threaded in two brass barb adapters for the inlet/outlet hoses. The pump I use is a quite one 4000 with 960 gph at 4 foot head. The outflow is quite nice on my 55 gallon.

Notes
The whole house filters have a red button that you can depress to bleed air from the system for easy pump starts.
The filter has an optional mounting bracket to hang the unit on the wall or on the tank's stand.
A drain peacock is very useful for canister maintenance. I have done this on other models by drilling a hole into the bottom of the canister, threading and inserting the peacock. Along with ball valves on in/out of the filter this makes filter cleaning a breeze.
The longest I've gone without filter maintenance is a month. I didn't notice any cut in filter output. Normally I do it weekly filter floss changes along with my water changes. Longer is possible if necessary.

 

[CWO4GUNNER]

I like your use of the whole house filter housing as a canister especially if you can get one in the giant size 12x5" for a reasonable price, I just never could get past the $100 price tag.

The only thing about using a whole house water filter housing is that it is by design already a very efficient when used with its intended micron cartridge filter which provides 0 bypass keeping the contaminated incoming water side separate from the filtered cleaned water side making for great efficiency and positive filtration. They even make many different type of reusable cartridge filters from 1 to 50 micron.

I use the giant 12X5" pleated 25 micron cartridge filters myself in my modified Fluval 404 and they work awesome last for months and are reusable when soaked in bleach water, just like the tiny Magnum cartridges.

That is a very well engineered filter housing you have their and I commend you on your initiative to modify its use even though you will find that your getting allot of bypass, 50% is my guess. I would try using one of its intended $10 micron filters as well to see the comparable differences, you might just have yourself one heck of a water polisher.:idea:

 

[Reginald Swift]

Thank you for your reply. I picked up this 12x5.5" housing up for $50 on sale at lowes. Normally it is $60. I was considering the issue of bypass with this design but with the intake directing the water to the bottom of the filter I can't see how it would be an issue. The water needs to rise through the filter media to reach the top. Correct me if I'm wrong. Any suggestions on how to improve the efficiency would be greatly appreciated. I also have a second smaller whole house filter inline that has it's intended 2 micron filter to fine polish the water. It's on bypass so I can run it only when needed. Otherwise is clogs way to easily.