Hi Guys, Joey here again today.
Today I'm going to show you how to make a very simple, very easy, very cheap, and extremely
effective aquarium filter.
Now with the recent peak in interest in the K1 Kaldnes media this is going to be a fluidized
bed filter.
Now K1 has been around for about 10 year now, but mainly has been used in ponds.
Over the last couple of years it's starting to increase in popularity in the aquarium
world.
I'm going to show you how to make a very simple filter.
Here is the supplies you're going to need, some airline tubing, you're going to need
a sponge -- I'm just using a sponge that I had laying around, preferably I would like
to use an aquaclear sponge -- something with larger pore structure than this simple sponge
here.
It's just what I had on hand, and it works so that's what do it yourself is actually
all about -- using whatever you have on hand to create something.
You also need an air pump, a bottle -- preferably 2 liter or 1 liter depending on the size of
your aquarium, and you're also going to need a couple suction cups.
The suction cups I'm using I believe came from a heater, as you can see they have a
nub right here that is going to be needed.
Something similar to that is what you're going to need.
So to start out you take your pop or juice bottle, rinse it very well, remove the cap
and drill some holes in it.
I will tell you why we're drilling holes in that later.
Next is a hole in the neck of the bottle here, now the hole only needs to be slightly smaller
than your airline tubing, the reason being is because you're not siliconing it in place,
you want it to just simply be held snugly in there.
Now if you use a drill bit that is slightly smaller than your airline tubing you will
accomplish just that.
Next, is a couple holes in the side of the bottle, preferably near the bottom and near
the top.
After that, some holes at the top of the bottle -- well actually this would be the bottom
but we are going to be positioning this upside down, so this is now the top.
The more holes that you create, the more bubbles you're going to get out of the top and the
quieter it will be.
You'll see that later in the video when we show this actually functioning.
For putting this together, it's really quite simple.
Take your k1 kaldnes media, which I have here, this is about 1L of it.
If you look at my other videos you will be able to get some more information on this
k1 kaldnes.
Take your k1 kaldnes and fill up your bottle, I like to use a large mouth bottle because
it's simply easier to get your kaldnes in and it comes with a bigger cap which allows
you to have many holes in it.
So once you fill up your bottle with the k1 kaldnes, you go ahead and insert your airline
hose.
It's going to be a tight fit to get it in there, but it will go in.
Now, you just want the exit of the hose to be about the midway point.
It should just stay in there by itself -- as you can see it's not going to go anywhere.
From there, put the cap back on (and again we have already got the kaldnes in there)
and then you can put your suction cups on.
Now this is the reason for the nubs on the suction cups, is because they can squeeze
in but they can't come out.
They will come out if you pull on them, but they're in there firm enough to hold themselves
in place -- so that's it.
Next, take your sponge (I've already cut a hole in it) and put it over the end -- and
that's it.
Plug it into your airline tube, put it in your tank and turn your air pump on and that's
it.
Now the reason why we drilled the holes in the cap is very simple.
I wanted the maintenance to be extremely low on a filter like this, and the reason for
the holes is when you're ready to clean your sponge (which should be weekly), the more
often the better because it's only used for mechanical, there's no biological purpose
that you should be using it for (that is what you're k1 is for).
While you will have some nitrifying bacteria on the sponge, you should want most of your
bacteria here so clean the sponge often.
So when you remove your sponge, you can leave your filter running.
If you didn't have a cap and your filter was still running, you're going to have a lot
of k1 coming out.
The only way to avoid that is to turn the airline off, the k1 will float to the top
and then you can take the sponge off.
This is just a lot easier.
So that's basically it.
I'm going to show you installation, what it will look like in your tank and turning it
on, that's it.
The cost of something like this, I mean I had the sponge kicking around so that's free.
Airline hose, 10-25 cents a foot depends on where you're shopping, not a lot of money
there - maybe a dollar or two dollars, the pop bottle is free, you're going to buy it
of course but you get to drink the pop or juice out of it so it's pretty much free,
suction cups you probably have some kicking around.
If you don't they're pretty cheap as well, maybe 30 or 40 cents.
K1 kaldnes media is what's going to cost you the most, there is not a lot of places that
sell it by the liter, but I've noticed on eBay there is one place I believe it's in
the UK though I think it is around 10-15 dollars a liter which is pretty expensive, but if
you can find something local or find a few friends that want to split on a 25 liter bag,
it should only cost you 2-3 dollars per liter.
Then your air pump, maybe 10-15 bucks, so no more than 20 dollars for everything.
Now, you could make several of these and run several tanks, something like a 2 liter size
with 1 liter of k1 should be able to handle a nicely stocked 25-30 gallon tank.
If you ran two of them, you're looking at maybe a 50-55 gallon tank.
Then you can upgrade to a 4L jug and have that in the tank.
I know that it would be an eyesore and that you don't really want to see it but once you
see it in action it actually looks pretty cool.
If somebody comes to your house, it's a great conversation piece -- I guarantee they're
going to ask "what's that?"
So we have a very effective, very cheap, very easy aquarium filter so give it a shot.
If you do end up trying this and you take some pictures of it, join my Facebook page
and put some pictures on there I would love to see what everyone else is coming up with.
But anyway let's have a look at this in action.
So the filter is installed in the tank now, as you can see it just suction cups to the
side.
This is a prime example as to why you'd want to position the airline when putting it into
your bottle to have it in the back of the bottle, that way you can hide the airline
behind it.
Also you can notice that the k1 floats at first.
It will float no matter if the media is cycled or not.
For maintenance, all you have to do is remove this sponge, rinse it off, and put it back
on -- that's it.
That's the reason why we had the cap staying on so you can do that without shutting the
filter off.
You can remove the sponge and the media will not get out.
So you can leave it running.
You never have to clean the k1 itself -- ever.
So I'm going to go ahead and turn the filter on here.
Now the reason why you don't want to use an air stone is because the air bubbles coming
out the pump are going to agitate the k1 media a lot better than an air stone would, the
air stone puts out tiny bubbles and this is going to put out larger bubbles which is going
to cause a lot more suction and move the k1 around a little bit more.
Now the way this works is as the air bubbles rise, it's causing suction behind it, so it's
causing water to be sucked up through the sponge and filtered through the k1 exiting
through the top.
Placement of the bottle itself depends on where you want to have it.
I prefer to have it about an inch below the water surface so you can some surface agitation.
If the noise is too much, drill some extra holes in there so there's more bubbles coming
out and it won't be so noisy.
That's basically it, you'll be able to see that I can add more media to this filter here
-- there's plenty of room in there, and you can play it by ear and see if you can fit
more in yours.
That's basically it, very simple filter -- probably the easiest filter you will ever have to maintain.
It covers your mechanical filtration and you're biological.
You don't really need chemical filtration unless you're trying to remove medication
from an aquarium like using activated carbon for example.
So this is it -- very simple, very cheap, very easy, and extremely effective.