ok, heres the materials list:

hang on tank powerhead 15-20 dollars

household water filter cartridge (1.5 micron and up) 8-10 dollars and up to 30 dollars

adapter cone (usually comes with hang on tank powerheads) free or cheap


and thats it!!!!!!!!

all you do is plug the bottom end of the cartridge (if need be) and snugly place the adapter cone into the filter cartridge and mount it to the powerhead and hang inside of the tank. run it for an hour or so and viola! polished water!

i havent constructed mine yet because i have to wait til next payday. i will post back with my results next weekend!

happy tinkering!

Toothless, you are some tinkerer!
OK, I hate to sound ignorant, but I'm not sure what a powerhead is (duh). Where do I get one? What is it really for?
I am going to have to try this. When do you get paid? When will you be constructing yours?

love my pets,

next friday, after work, ill be dilligently working on my water polisher. i have a turtle tank that is going to be the test dummy. its very hard to keep the free-floating algae at bay because they eat and poop more than twice the amount of goldies! so, friday night, ill have a report as to the polishing capabilities.

a powerhead is just a submersible pump that has many applications. you can hook them up to undergravel filters (instead of the bubbler). you can use them in the bottom of wet/dry filters to return the water to the tank (mainly saltwater tanks). or you can get constructive and do things like what im doing. most fish stores sell them. the kind you should get is one that has a removable "hook" that allows you to hang them from the rim of a tank. there are a few powerheads allow you to be able to reverse the flow. this would be optimal because you could "flush" the filter out after each use. this will prolong the life of each cartridge.

you can get a few different cartridges with micron sizes at any local scottys or home depot etc.etc. to remove allmost everything, youd need a 1.5-3 micron filter cartridge. 5 micron is a good one though and much cheaper!

i forgot to add that you may want to wrap the crtridge/tube with some good filter floss and secure it. this too, will prolong the life of the cartridges.

jeez, shouldnt i be doing something else on a friday night? like, going to have a few beers at happy hour! but noooo, im going to be sitting at home tinkering with my many tanks. *sigh* i guess ive fallen helplessly into a heavy obsession with my love for aquatics!

Toothless,
Thanks for the info!
I can't wait to see how yours turns out; if it works well I will make one for my tanks!
Funny how this fish thing gets obsessive, huh? What you said about working on them on a Friday night makes me think--25 years ago Friday afternoons were for Happy Hour, now I spend Friday afternoons doing my water changes on the four tanks!
Keep me posted!

Showoff. It does look good though.

Looks like I may be making this one. It looks interesting enough to be fun and portable enough to carry from tank to tank. I'll wait until you post the results before I commit though.

aaaaaahh.......... a wise man learns from others mistakes before proceeding to make his own!

Not wise, merely ingested enough coffee to think clearly for the day.

And my wife is now jealous that I've been spending more time in the DIY forum than her. *cackle*

i just thought that id let everybody know that my diy water polisher is a success!


i finally decided to try a 5 micron household water filter cartridge. it fit very snugly onto the adapter cone. i used a circular film canister to plug the hole on the bottom. it took several minutes for the air to seep out of the filter material but, when it did, it really worked well! within 15 minutes my turtle tanks water was sooooper clean. i left it in there for an hour and i couldnt tell there was even water in there! aside from a few bubbles, that is.

the powerhead that i used is an aqua-clear 402 that pushes 270 gallons per hour. this powerhead is top of the line because you can flick a lever and reverse the flow. the tank is a 20 gallon long with 15 gallons of water. it almost always has a free-floating algae bloom in effect too! i have my homemade canister filter constantly running the tanks water through filter-floss and bio-balls but, it doesnt take care of the algae.

oh yeah, i almost forgot the best part! the filter cartridges (5 micron) that i bought, come two to a pack. i payed 7-8 dollars for them and they were somewhat long so i cut each one in half! so, i was able to get four filter cartridges for $8!! they are re-usable and you can flush it out between each use (thus, the reversable flow option on the powerhead). i take a 2-3 foot long hose (1/2 inch inner diameter) and push it over the water return. then i drop the end of the hose into a bucket of clean water and put the powerhead/micron filter into another bucket. plug the powerhead in and flush out the cartridge for the next tank and/or use! you may need to start out with a little water in the flushing bucket so as to keep the pump primed.

the cartridges are so cheap that you might not even want to mess with flushing and re-using, though!

there are other micron sizes available but, i would suggest 5 micron. anything bigger and you may not reach a desired effect.

happy tinkering,

tooth

YAY awsome idea, and works nearly perfect... I used a 25micron filter cartridge, and it nearly attached directly to my powerhead. I cut up a piece tubing from a undergravel filter and it jammed tight in the hole of the filter cartridge and it fit tightly over the power head.... it clears up clowdy water in about 2-3 hours as im going to purchase a 5 micron filter cartridge. I dont know if its ment to clear up yellowness of the water but i hope someone has a suggestion on how to do that....

Ive tried putting carbon into the hole of the filter cartdige and covered the top hole with abit of filter sponge to stop the carbon from enterting the fan of the power head...

This is a cheap alternative to a quick and simple water polisher... WELL DONE and thanks for the tip hope someone uses my carbon idea.... removes smell.. etc

(I have african cichlids in my tank....) They dont seem to mind it so i assume it wont harm ure goldies...

Hey Toothless -

Thanks for this idea!!! Had a very persistent alage bloom in my 40gal freshwater. Admittedly, it gets some indirect sunlight - and I'm currently shopping for better curtains. But in the meantime...

After trying a couple of different "clumping" chemicals (I _hate_ putting chemicals in my tank), I started researching uv sterilizers and diatom filters to help restore this opaque green box in my living room to its former fishy paradise. It cleared up the bloom in just under three hours for about half the cost of any other solution.

Yahoo!

--Coffeefueled

Interesting. Might come in handy for cases of ich as well.

Ok I have a 55 gallon tank and I made a filter with a 5 micron been running 12 hours now and i dont notice a big differnece. Yes there are some particals on the cartridge that it caught but the water isn't much clearer

im sorry. what were you trying to accomplish? was it an algal bloom? bacterial bloom? rusty water?

with a 3 to five micron filter, you should be able to filter out algae, rust and any other suspended particles in that size range or higher. if youve got cloudy water after running a 3-5 micron for 12 hours, somethings wrong.

was the powerhead still running full blast after the 12 hours? if not, the filter was clogged to the point that it wasnt doing very much anymore.

if the powerhead was still flowing freely, you just need to switch to a finer micron screen to filter out whatever it is thats making your water muddled or cloudy. other than that, i dunno...........

paul

Hey Paul, just out of interest did the water filter cartridge effect your pH?

We have a water filter on our kitchen sink tap. I don't know the micron but it costs around $35 and only needs replacing annually.

When the lady came to replace the cartridge she noticed my tanks and warned me not to use filtered water in the tanks for at least a week. Something to do with carbon increasing pH.

I tested the pH and it was off the charts, I don't know how high it was, the colour was a deep indigo blue. After about 10 days the pH reduced to neutral.

hi annette!

wow! good thing she mentioned that, huh?

the unit you have removes other impurities other than particulate matter. in the smaller micron sizes and different medias used is where you get the capacity to remove these impurities. not so with the standard "rust removing" type filters that i suggested using.

maybe we need to get something "pinned" in the water forum warning about your scenario. im sure theres more then just you who use the tapwater in the house that has been run through a water softener and even the "undersink"filters. its specifically that reason that if you dont know if the water is running through filters, you should fill your buckets from an outside spigot (theyre in-line before the filters and softeners).

paul

Dear toothless,

Can you kindly share with us your filter cartridges replacement schedule? This system is really very interesting ... my under the sink system last me 3 months.

Sorry for not seeing your question sooner, I havent been in the diy forum much lately.

This water polisher is strictly for using temporarily. For algal blooms, bacterial blooms, fine particulate matter that the filter isnt getting and clearing up the stuff that gets kicked up from tank maintenence. Usually, you only want to use it for a few hours at a time (depending on the job) whenever you think it needs it.

I do however, like Datagurus suggestion of the possibility to use in "trapping" trophonts and tomites (stages of ich life cycle). I cant remember the average micron size of each right now but, i think its somewhere near what the powerhead/polisher can handle. Kind of like a cheapo version of using a diatom filter, huh?

Paul

Here a thread on how Diane Walstad used a micron filter and the bucket to bucket method to treat ich.

She says: The ich swarmers, which infect the fish, are 30 microns.

Thanks guys for your reply

Perfect then. This would make an excellent addition to a treatment involving salt and heat for ich.

Thanks again, Betty!

Hey Paul, I started to do the DIY thing yesterday, but instead I picked up an aquaclear 1 micron quick filter yesterday to polish the water in the newly set up natural planted tank. It's the same one Diane was talking about and cost around $9. It fits my penguin powerhead ok. a little loose. Seems to be working good. I may try some rubber washers to make sure it's sealing. The filter is cleanable and replacements are only a couple of bucks. I'll bet the filter bags could be useful by themselves.

I have the quickfilter attachment for my aqua-clear powerhead but I couldn't ever find the micron sleeve to add to it (locally anyway).

Does it clean easily? Or are replacements necessary?

Is it that type of material that is real fuzzy like a stuffed animal?

Side thread:
Isn't it amazing how much endlers resemble guppies? They can even breed with guppies but the offspring are suppose to be infertile.

How do you deal with thinning out the ranks in the tank so that they don't get overcrowded? Do you cull?

don't you got any pics of the filter?

You know, I didn't even realize that the pics didn't survive the move to our new server. I'll get on it right away. check back late tonight or in the morning..........

In the first pic, you see the powerhead with the adapter cone attached to it already. The filter tube is already cut in half.

[attachmentid=6816]

In this pic, you see how I blocked off the hole in the bottom of the tube. I used the lid from a rubbing alcohol bottle.

[attachmentid=6817]

In this last pic, you see it all put together. Just hang it inside your tank and you have a great temporary water polisher and/or parasite removal unit...

[attachmentid=6818]


Happy tinkering!

That's cool Paul!



It has two layers.. a felt inside layer and a fuzzy outside layer.
Petsmart carries them and I believe they have a free shipping thing going at the moment. I don't use them routinely cuz they stop up too fast. They clean pertty well. I put them in a freezer bag and shake them in hot water. rinse... then smack them up against something... wring... and repeat till most of the junk is out and water flows freely thru them again. Docs Foster and Smith has both 50 and 100 micron filter media that can be wrapped around the aquaclear filter thing. I'm also using it in the HOBs on top of the regular filter pads.



They are very smiliar to wild/feeder guppies. I've sold around 100 males to the LPS and have recently started selling them on Aquabid (man I HATE mailing fish). and the 125 is still full of the little buggars. I'd bet they'd keep breeding till they crashed the tank. I'm considering getting something that'll eat them.

Yep, I wound up finding some at a little obscure shop around here. They DO fill up petty fast, don't they? I backflush mine from bucket to bucket a few times to clean them. Luckily, one of my aqua-clear powerheds has reverse flow built in.........

Oh yea. Two days is the longest I could go without cleaning them. With the venturi's running it was easy to tell when they're stopping up.

I know this DIY has been here for a while but...

OMG I JUST MADE IT AND IT'S AWESOME!!!

For the last few weeks my tank has had some strange sediment that my filters would not clear out. With this little baby plus some flocculating agent, it cleared up in about 45 minutes. HOORAY!