Hi, everybody Joey here again, and welcome back so in today's video
I'm going to show you how to build an aquarium water
Sterilizer for the past Few [Years] many of you have been asking me [for] my take on a do-it-yourself version of the Twin star
Aquarium water Sterilizer
I've actually been avoiding that project for a number [of] reasons one the company is actually pretty elusive as to how it actually
Works on. What is actually doing second?
I've never actually owned one which means I've never seen them in action
Personally or had the opportunity to kind of take them apart and see [what's] working inside
What that said was some very minimal research?
I quickly realized that they're using electrolysis to sterilize the water now electrolytic sizz a way to sterilize water
And it's been around for [over] a hundred years
[so] knowing what it's doing is the first step to me being able to replicate it before I get started
I simply want to state that this is just my version of what I?
think the Twin star is with that said I did get it to work does look exactly like the twin star and I did put
It through some tests
And I'll share that at the end
After I took a look at some photos of the twin star and seen it in action on video
I realized that could easily replicate what's going on there?
[I] needed to start off with what's on the inside [of] the tank
[it] looks like a small disc and a couple pieces of steel mesh on the inside
After a few short minutes walking around the hardware store. I realized that I could just use a [two] inch coupling for the diSc and
Then I lucked out and found some stainless steel
Mesh that's actually meant as a funnel screen
If you've never seen a funnel screen basically they just go inside [of] your funnel so that you can strain out any
solid Particles when you're pouring any liquid into whatever else however
There's all types of stainless steel mesh out there
And it's pretty cheap to find you could cut it to size I locked out and found some two-inch funnel screen that would fit inside
My 2 inch abs coupling the two inch abs coupling is a little too wide though
So I cut off both of the ends leaving about an inch of width [and] then drilled some holes in the sides of the coupling
one being slightly bigger than the other
the big one is going to house [the] end of a suction cup because this is going to be sucked to the side of a
Tank eventually the other hole is only big enough to fit wires through and this is going to be our power source
I then grabbed a few feet of old speaker wire I stripped the wire and attached one wire to one piece of the
and another wire to the other piece of the mesh and then cemented them in place with my bondic pen
Which I showed you [guys] in [another] video
How that works then each mesh is pressed into the coupling the key here is to ensure that they get close
But do not touch now. We're almost done
We just have to attach this to a power source now because you only turn this on every once in a while
I wanted the cheapest way [possible] to do this and since summer is right around the corner
I want to got one of these cheap lanterns for five bucks
They were on sale the reason it's so cheap is it's just cheap plastic, and it has a cheap six volt battery inside
But it's that six volt battery that I'm after this will be our power source
So total cost as is right now is five dollars for the battery
$1 for the coupling and a dollar for each mesh the suction cup the wire. I already had on hand
so I'm about eight dollars into this which is bad [because] I think the Twin star costs like
150 bucks or something like that now we place the disc inside the aquarium and
attach the wires to the negative terminal on the battery first and then the
Positive terminal now as soon as you attach this to the positive terminal watch what happens?
We're now creating electrolysis the tiny micro bubbles that you see is actually
Oxygen and Hydrogen
Which is what water is made out of we're now slowly
Sterilizing the water now this isn't something that you leave on all of the time
Typically you turn it on for an hour and then shut it off
however
Often you need to turn this on will depend on the conditions of your aquarium and the results that you get but after an hour
You simply unplug the positive terminal and that's it then reconnect as you need it [now]
[I] did try this on my own aquariums, and it was entirely harmless to my fish as I knew it would be
With that said I noticed zero differences in my water clarity
Although I must say that I don't have any algae issues or bacterial issues so any testing on my part was pretty pointless
[I] should also note that I'm not interested in this type of water sterilization due to its efficiency
It's really only going to work on smaller aquariums, and it's almost impossible to insure where all of the water has been treated
So I'm not going to use this project on my personal aquariums
But it certainly was a fun build to do for less than ten bucks
You can go ahead and experiment with it on your own and see what it can do for your aquarium
Personally for me if I were going to use a sterilizer for my aquarium
I would definitely use ultraviolet
sterilization in my opinion far more effective and efficient and you can ensure that your entire water volume is treated on a
Continuous basis, but I guess I just like to keep things simple
So I do want to thank you guys for project
Suggestions like this one and even though I can't get to them all I certainly do take them seriously and build them as I can
Anyways, hope that you guys enjoyed [today's] video
I also want to thank you for watching and I'll see you guys [next] Sunday for a new do yourself project
Hmmm. Look at this. I'm sit down here with a space heater. Heat me up staring at my sweater
Dying to put it back on it is warm out during the days recently, but it is freezing at night. I'm
Glad to be done