Maybe a homemade filter? Your thoughts

[sd1274]

So I have been maintaining a pipe dream. If I have my twenty gallon drain in to my two and a half gallon and than pump that back up after filtering it in that mini sump. This is for a freshwater but its just an idea.

I could put mechanical and biological filtration into the smaller tank and there would be a pump to push it back up.

What do you think? Feasible?
Sean

[tanks4thememories]

Very doable but I would have to ask why? The gains are negligible unless you are doing it for the thrill of it then in that case I understand.

[Amazon]

I have done it for a slatwater tank before. I had a five gallon. I oumped water into a 2.5 above the five gallon and let it drain back into the tnak through ahole in the glass.

My recomendation, jsut buy a filter. Glass cutting is not fun.

[sebastien]

i'm makin an overflow right now for my 30g. im using a big storage bin for the sump...check out this link..may or not help..[Only Registered Users Can See Links.] you will need some more room though..

[Michael Milligan]

Search "DIY sump aquarium" at youtube and you will find lots of things that I found helpful

I made a sump for a 20 gallon salt tank. You really don't need anything like this for a freshwater tank.

You'll need an overflow to drain the big tank into the sump. Build it out buy it I guess. If I were to do this again, I think I would go for drilling the bottom and making an internal overflow (makes the over-all setup easier).

Pumps for this cost a lot because you not only need speed, but power. And pumps that lift water any more than a few feet get expensive fast. And even then, depending on how close to the limit you are, the flow might be a mere trickle.

[sd1274]

To answer alot of questions in one swing:
I have a pump and this is for a thrill. There will be no glass drilling, i have the output and return already set up and tested. MY major concern is if the "sump" tank is big enough (2.5 for a twenty). The practical purpose of this project is for greater mechanical and biological filtration.

I am actually using an old marineland HOB filter with drilled piped draining down into the sump, with a valve to close it off at any point. This HOB is completedly throw away so no, Im not wasting anything. The HOB will suck the water up and it will drain into the 2.5 where it will pass through a series of mechanical, carbon, and bio balls to the pump. A standard but small pond pump my grandmother was going to sell at a yard sell. It will pump the water back up through PVC and out a spout into the tank.

The Aesthetic reasons for this attempt is to: put the heater in the "sump" and also the CO2 injector. in order to keep these out of view in my tank.

Thanks for all the help,
sean