are you tired of always having to switch the cartridges of your filter for your aquarium?
well if you are you're at the right place because in this video i will be showing you
how to save money by not using these cartridges and making your own filter media
for your filter
hello and welcome to Dolbec aqua designs
so the filtration that is done by aquarium filters is actually separated in
multiple categories first of all there's the mechanical filtration
then there's the biological filtration and finally there's what we call the chemical filtration
all of the surfaces that are in your aquarium are actually the house of beneficial bacteria
and so typically when we are talking about biological filtration it's actually filters that
are optimized to better house the bacteria that do the beneficial filtration of your aquarium these
bacteria will help break down any waste products that are made by either your fish rotting food
that is uneaten in your aquarium and even rotting plants so usually the way that some of these hang
on the back filters work is that they're going to use these small cartridges that you have to put in
to do the filtration and they actually expect you to change these cartridges every two to four weeks
and so in the long run these cartridges can get expensive so a trick that you can do
is make your own filtration unit and stop buying these cartridges and i'll show you how
the first thing that you'll want to do is to buy some aquarium safe sponge so this is a specialty
sponge that is used in the filters of aquariums and so it is made to trap all of the debris inside
of the sponge and since it is also quite porous it can also house a lot of beneficial bacteria that
will help break down the waste in your aquarium the other thing that we'll be adding in our filter
is biological filtration media and so this media comes in various forms it can take the form of
ceramic rings porous rocks plastic rings whatever there's lots of it and what i'll be showing today
is actually just some basic porous rocks so to do the mechanical and biological filtration we will
be using aquarium foam so the one i bought is from the brand aquaclear you don't necessarily need to
buy this brand this is only what was available to me and so what you'll find in these boxes
is large cubes of foam and actually what we will be doing is that we will be using a knife
to cut some foam pieces to put inside our filter the other thing that we will be using
is biological filtration media this is high capacity porous rocks from the brand
seachem you don't have to use this brand or this product you could use
lava rock that is much cheaper you could use ceramic bio rings you could use plastic bio rings
whatever you find lastly we'll be using media bags and so these are small bags that let the water go
through but keep all of the stuff inside all of the media like the other two you don't necessarily
need to buy this brand and you could actually use other types of materials to do your own media bags
so the way that these filters work is that the water output nozzle
will be sitting here on the top and will be shooting water right into here
and so what we want to do is that we want to set up a first sponge in the first section right here
that will act as a barrier that will take out all of the debris that initially come in
we will then put two small bags filled with biological media in the bottom of these two
sections and lastly we will be using another piece of sponge but this one we will be using
it on top of the filter and this way we will be doing mechanical filtration at the start
and at the end of the filtration which will result in a super clear water in our aquarium so for
the first step we're actually just gonna cut two pieces of foam that we're gonna put in our filter
it's not super important which size they are just that they fit in your filter because you might not
have this exact same type of filter as me so the first part we're gonna just stuff it right there
all the way to the bottom and so what we're gonna do next is take these small bags
of media and put them in the filter actually this is super easy to do at the same time
as i'm filming i'm kidding i'm doing a poor job as you can see it's not all the way to the bottom
this is so much better so it's important that you put enough media but not too much just to be able
to push them all the way into your filter another quick tip that i can give you is if your bags have
small ropes make sure that you put them on the top this way when you're gonna do maintenance on your
filter and you have to take them out you can just pull on the string and wash your bags of media
lastly we'll be using the other piece of sponge now it's hard to see on this sponge but
on my filter here there's a piece right there right sticking at the middle
and what i've done with this piece of sponge is actually
as you can see i can put my finger inside i've cut a small hole right there so that i can just
stick the sponge right onto this section as you can see with the hole i can pass the sponge right
through the piece of plastic and also this way the sponge holds quite nicely and so what will happen
is that as you can see here the water will enter here will push through this sponge and
will then be all the debris will be filtered this one time and then it will go all the way here with
the biological media so the bacteria will have flowing water which is important to keep them
healthy and the water will then push through the sponge either by this way or this way
and will trickle down the small waterfall and so there you have it this is how you load media
to do it yourself on a hang on the back filter that was originaly made to use these cartridges
and so the cool thing about this is that when you're gonna do maintenance you're just gonna
have to take out your sponge swish it around in the water that you're taking out from your
aquarium when you're doing your water change and then put it back on you don't even have to
buy more of these sponge and media you just have to rinse them once in a while when you're
doing your maintenance of your aquarium so here you can see i just put the hang on the back
filter that we've made with the homemade media on my aquarium just to show you how it works
and so here we can see the shimmer here is actually from the water that's being taken
and pushed through and you see that the water hits this sponge or either this sponge right away
this means that the water will always be filtered mechanically
the water also reaches both of these media bags meaning that the beneficial bacteria that lives
in these porous stones will get to do their job and also that they always get some fresh water
and then the water will go right back to this sponge i'm actually just gonna remove the filter
the top just so you can see and the water will trickle down right there on the small waterfall
that's on the filter as you can see right here and so you might be wondering why the hell am i
putting this filter on an aquarium that already has its own filtration and so this way i get to
have the beneficial bacteria that lives in this already well established aquarium to get to start
to colonize the sponges and the rocks that are in this filter and so i am preparing this filter
because i want to set up a new aquarium later and this will be the already cycled media and filter
that will be on my new aquarium and so there you have it this is how you can prepare your filter
thank you for watching and i'll see you in the next one