Greetings. I have a DIY canister filter project I will be working on to augment filtration for my 120 tank currently using a Magnum 350 in order to bust the GPH filtration from 350 to about 1000 GPH. It will also provide a ready to use seeding filter to use for cycling my next 180-300 acrylic tank. The concept based after a very smart gentleman who posted this DIY using the same type water tight O-ring cam lock polypropylene container on a much smaller scale then I will be using "How to DIY Canister filter". Mine will be based on a 1 gallon container which I just received yesterday and a used RIO 600 GPH pump that came with my used 120 tank. The idea is to put my stored Rio 2100 pump to good use and create an affordable high efficiency canister filter for less then $25. My initial 2 quart concept shown below has improved to the use of a 1 gallon Lock & Lock container also shown below, but the concept will be the same. All other hardware not shon (hoses, isolation vales, exc) will be purchased at LHS to save money over use of "aquarium use hardware".

Larger canister to be used

UPDATE:My 24 year old daughter who is a Computer program writer is in town from OR to calibrate her birthday and see the annual river run. So the project is on hold for a week but the next time I post there will be complete illustration and the working results, in the mean time Ill be Easy Rider lol..

Greetings back to you. I applaud your efforts and creativity. Just consider some advice from one who has tried this projects from many angles.

1) that container you are using is polypropelyne and it is a soft material which will be very hard to seal where you cut it.
2) after the work and re-work you may find that for $7 an hour you would have saved money by buying a Fluval on ebay for 40-60 dollars and get a very reliable system
3) water spilling out from your home project will ruin furniture and flooring, paint and drywall
4) get yourself an acrylic or thick polycarbonate box instead of the one in the picture.

Good luck!!!

i agree that the container may be too thin. if your pump creates a vacume it could pull the sides in, or pop your seals causing the whole water all over problem.

or.... it could work great. only one way to find out.

Nice idea...Scratch out that container you have.....Go to Home DEpot and purchase one of those orange Home depot buckets for $5.....

i agree and get a check valve also with another valve on the return side

__________________

Sorry for not posting all the details but it has been up and running now for 3 months strait. The negative pressure is so strong that air is pulled out of solution inside the canister so I had to plug it into a timer so it shuts down every 6 hours for 2 minutes so that positive pressure from the aquarium can push all the accumulated air out of the canister. Then the timer restarts and its good for another 6 hours.

this is awesome i might look at something like this for myself

__________________
It has become more than a hobby! My 29gal Dream Reef DIY Build

good job man what are you using for filtration

__________________

also from your pics you donnot have a valve or do you

__________________

Well with any DIY there are pro's and con's having to use ready made items rather them design engineered.

(The O-ring lid seal) Because the Lock & Lock canister is made mostly to keep air out the O-ring is on the lid and seal by compressing against the canister body which makes it great for withstanding negative pressure (sucking in force), unlike engineered commercial made canisters (Magnum) where the O-ring is on the side lid lip wedged between the canister body and lid where neither negative nor positive pressure can affect the seal. Because of this the Lock & Lock canister can only take a limited amount of positive pressure (gravity water pressure from the tank pushing outward).

As a result this DIY design must be kept no lower then the bottom of the tank or when the pump shuts down deliberately or accidentally during a power outage, the negative pressure the motor was causing drops and the positive pressure from the tank increases which is fine if this DIY is no lower then the bottom of the tank (only about 3 PSI). But if for example you had it on the floor PSI would increase to about 9-12 and start pushing on the bottom of the O-ring lifting the seal enough to cause leaking, something O discovered when I had shut the pump off Yikes!

So I have had the pump on a platform higher up and and it has never leaked a drop in 3 months and it shuts down 6 times a day (timer) for self air purging. So my fitting tubes were shortened, so short that I removed the valves as they were no longer needed. I simple lift the entire canister for cleaning and the short hoses come with after draining when the ends come out of the water. The quick PVC disconnects you see are just for convenience to get the hoses out of the way when cleaning.

Media at the bottom is just 1 stainless steel sink drain strainer 2 flanked by 2 carbon stocking bags, followed upward by a form fitted blue bio blanket, followed by 2 from cut AC70 sponges, followed by very loose filter floss.

Essential requirements. You cannot simply get away with using silicone sealer around canister holes and hoses. You must use bullhead fitting which are expensive unless you makeshift. As you can see every hole on the canister body (3) uses 2 PVC fittings with sandwiched green hose washers thread compressed on each side of the canister wall, no silicone was necessary except for the wiring which is actually called a "stuffing tube" same a bullhead fitting except it has a capped end filled with silicone sealer and a small hole only for the wire, becasue a stuffing tube (used on Naval ships) is long and filled with sealant it can withstand allot of water pressure due to surface tension of all that sealant in a long plug. Cost about $0.60 per makeshift PVC bullhead fitting vs $10 each for standard aquarium bullhead fittings.
That it

i made my own something like that but mine is under the tank on the ground.. I had to upgrade to a 450gpm pump could have used a smaller 250 but due to my connections are 3 quarters of an inch i needed enuff umphh for lift..I have had mine running well for a year now with some minor dilemmas mainly the bad pump backing plate kept on falling off so the propeeler was shot so i got my 450 and it works like a champ...

__________________