How To Make A Fish Tank Filter Out Of A Water Bottle

8.7.5. Do it yourself Aquarium Bottle Filters — eight.7.5. Exercise it yourself Aquarium Bottle Filters

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Another filter made famous by Joey Mullens (the "Rex of DIY") is a bottle filter. Information technology has many variations merely in its simplest class it is an xvi-ounce inverted water bottle with an air tube from an air pump inserted in the cervix, some foam over the spout, and holes in the flat lesser of the inverted canteen. There is media such as half inch lava rock or ceramic rings put in the canteen and air bubbling are bubbled up through the media. This is a very cheap filter.

It is also a very poor filter. The problem is twofold: at that place is very little media and there is very little menstruation. The tube coming out of a sponge filter or an under-gravel filter is called a lift tube for a reason. A cavalcade of minor rising bubbles lifts water with it and creates a small flow. In the case of the typical sponge filter this is roughly x to xx gallons per hour.

In a canteen there is no elevator. The bubbles do not "push" the water up and out. The water rising with the bubbling simply recirculates to the lesser of the bottle. And so, it'south a stretch to say a bottle filter moves one quart per hr of water through information technology. If it's in a 25-gallon aquarium the water goes through the filter in one case every two days. Thus, there is very little filtration.

The proof of this is uncomplicated. I took a canteen filter in operation and injected the bottle with red food dye through plastic pipette. The red colored filled the bottle. The dye then remained there for about 1 hour before finally dissipating into the aquarium. There was very footling period THROUGH the canteen into the aquarium to disperse the dye. This low flow through will not filter water very well.

Joey made one video where he says a bottle which uses K1 media in it in a fluidized bed design is a much worse filter than the bottle filled with ceramic media. Joey is buying into the hype about surface surface area in ceramic media and is technically 180 degrees incorrect, the K1 fluidized bed bottle filter will exist much better than the ceramic media bottle filter. But the whole argument is pointless as neither K1 or ceramic in a bottle filter will practice even a decent job of filtration.

picture of an aquarium fish Paralabidochromis Chromogynos Black Piebald — Paralabidochromis Chromogynos Black Piebald

Making the Bottle Filter Piece of work

Now, if i adds a lift tube to the tiptop of the bottle instead of merely some holes and don't invert the bottle, things change radically. A lift tube makes the canteen filter virtually equivalent to a sponge filter. Joey'south design can be made into a decent filter:

Don't take whatsoever foam.
Turn the design upside down, with the neck of the canteen at the top
Put the cap dorsum on the bottle and drill several many small holes in the cap
Put many small-scale holes in the bottom of the bottle
Fill the bottle with media (prefer pot scrubbers or K1)
Glue on a six to viii-inch length of pipage to the neck of the bottle (3/4-inch schedule 80 PVC works great on a typical one or two liter water bottle)
Put an air line glued to the lesser of the lift tube, or route the air line through the bottle up through the cap and into the bottom of the elevator tube.
Plough on the air. The air will rise upward through the lift tube. As the air moves up the lift tube information technology takes water with information technology, creating a flow in the bottle.

The elevator tube will so move the water through the bottle at a decent clip.

A version of such a bottle filter is shown below:

A bottle filter which will work. — A bottle filter which volition piece of work.

A variant of this design is to put the air line into the bottom of the bottle filter, making the air rise through the bottle, into the tube through the cap. If this filter is loaded threescore% with K1 micro media ($20 per liter) it will make a fantabulous fluidized bed filter for a pocket-sized aquarium. An even better variant tin exist made with any of the many containers found in Walmart in the kitchen goods section. Square cantankerous section quart bottles are especially attractive for a decent sized fluidized bed internal corner filter.

A smashing idea came on the comments section of this website from ane "Harris". Harris took a large bottle and put a powerhead on the top of the bottle. He and so filled the bottle 60% with K1 media and drilled a series of holes in the center of the bottom of the bottle. The powerhead pulled a powerful electric current through the holes in the lesser and did a very adept job of circulating the K1 media. Information technology is a very good idea.

Ziss Bubble Bio Moving Bed Filter

Annotation that the Aquarium Co-op is selling a pocket-sized commercial fluidized bed filter called the Ziss Bubble Bio Moving Bed Filter. This is basically a commercial version of Joey'due south bottle design. Other manufacturers are coming out with variations on this design.

The Ziss unit has the same shortcomings as Joey's canteen design. Without a lift tube air move through the filter the water doesn't move through the filter. So the aquarium water might get into the filter in one case every ii days. This only won't give skilful filtration.

For more data on small filters for the small aquarium click on this link:

8.7.vi. Small Filters

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