New DIY project

[novahobbies]

This weekend I decided to return to my aunt's tank and see what's been going on with her setup. For those who don't know me too well (and let's face it, thats most everyone here...) I've been nominated the family tank guy for my extended clan. Besides my three tanks, I take care of my cousin's 28 gallon bowfront, and less frequently my Aunt's 90g.
Sad to say, her tank is looking pretty grim. Bryopsis algae like you wouldn't believe, a fuge that has totally slimed over, and a lot of schmutz on the sand. Part of her problem is her filtration...she had to take her skimmer off because it was pouring water on the ground, and the sock she was using from her overflow was really doing no good. Ideally I would remove her sump and totally redo it, but these days we're on a heck of a budget. That's when I saw this:

And a little bulb went off in my head. DIY Time!!
Can you guess where I'm going with this?

It's not rocket science.....

 

[novahobbies]

This little doodad is a Sterilite Mini-Organizer that cost me all of 8 bucks, including tax. You can find it at pretty much any of the discount chain stores. It's 7"wide, 8" deep, and you can add or remove drawers to accommodate any size height you need for a sump. Each drawer will be home for a different sort of physical or chemical filtration...essentially a trickle filter in a sump.
Now, I know it's really too small for a 90g tank. Think of this as a good cheap project for a sump for a 45 to 55 gallon tank. I'm dealing with a 20g long sump under her tank, so without pulling the whole thing out, I'm working within certain limitations here. At the worst, this will provide some stopgap filtration until I can get her going with something better. So without any more pedantic ramblings...here we go!
First up -- gotta mark out the section of the drawer bottom that will actually filter down to the next level:

I measured out and marked spots where I will drill 1/4 inch holes in each drawer. 99 per drawer....that should do it.

Now thankfully I can just flip this drawer upside down, put a new drawer on top (right side up) and just see through the clear plastic to mark the remaining drawers. If I had to measure and mark these I'd go nuts.
And finally, here's a mock-up of the final idea....

More on this tomorrow!

 

[novahobbies]

Day 2:
So I started out drilling the holes I had marked on the plastic last night. 99 holes per shelf * 4 shelves = 396 ^&*$(ing holes to be drilled. After the first 20 or so, I stopped and looked at my progress. It wasn't pretty.

This was no way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Each hole either melted, or if the drill was slower, snagged and ripped the plastic of the drawer. Either way I was left with a serious mess to clean up even AFTER the holes would have been drilled. I sat and contemplated this for a minute. I may have muttered a few colorful metaphors about the subject. As I was considering my next plan of attack, the image of some spare light diffuser I had sitting around the house swam up and presented itself before my eyes. Bingo! I tossed (Well, fine, I wrapped the cord and put it away where it belongs...) the drill aside and picked up my trusty Dremel tool. With a heavy duty cutoff wheel in the chuck, this took me all of 2 minutes to cut:

And just 10 more minutes to finish the rest of the drawers. I dug out the diffuser plastic, cut a piece to fit, and came up with this:

And finally, the assembled trickle filter sans top with all the diffuser plastic siliconed in place:

So that's pretty much it! I'll install this tomorrow or Tuesday maybe, depending on the family's schedule. If I can convince her to replace her stiff rubber overflow drain with some flex-tubing, I may be able to add a bulkhead on to the top piece of this rack and connect the drain directly to the filter. It would make it look more professional. As it stands, I will leave the top piece off and drill some extra holes in to the stiff rubber drain so it acts as a bit of a diffuser along the top filter pad.
So: Questions? Comments? Critiques?

 

[trainfever]

When drilling the holes, use a Forstner bit, it is used for drilling wood. It will drill a cleaner hole and it has a starting point which will dig into your work and not wobble off center when you start drilling.

 

[novahobbies]

Huh. You know I have a few around the garage, but I never realized they came in 1/4 inch sizes....I never looked. Just googled it, and what do ya know?
Thanks - that may come in handy down the road!

 

[teresaq]

hummm this just sets in the sump, and the water runs in the top and out the bottom??? might work for my horse tank sump. Though I dont think I can get any more filteraton in this tank.

T

 

[lil.guppy]

Hey Novahobbies this is a fantastic idea! I saw this last week online. Its such a good idea and its cheap! I think it probably works better then a traditional store bought product!

 

[mproctor4]

We did the same thing. It has been up and running for about 3 months now--so far, so good. I wish I would have thought about the eggcrate idea!! Much easier than drilling. Cost about a 1/3 of a traditional wet/dry and is working great. I'll be interested to see how yours turns out.

 

[novahobbies]

Thanks. Yeah, I'll probably take pictures of the sump reset if I can. It is a three-chambered sump (overflow drain, 'fuge, pump return) and it's pretty filthy. I also think I got her skimmer retro'ed to act as an in-sump skimmer, so we'll attach that bad boy and see how we did.
I've seen pictures and threads about people doing this sort of mod with the larger sterilite organization drawers....usually turning them into a wet/dry trickle filter with bioballs. I never saw anyone take the skinny drawers and turn them into filter trays, but it seemed to be a logical step. No surprise that it's been done before, but I was surprised it wasn't documented before. I probably just didn't search enough.

 

[mproctor4]

Our top skinny drawer has the tubes from the overflow going into it. Then the next 2 skinny drawers have floss and carbon, then the larger drawer has bioballs (slowly converting to live rock rubble). It is easy to clean with the drawers. I took the very bottom drawer out all together. I store extra floss where the drawer used to be so that I have some cycled for the filter in the QT--that area is submersed in water at all times. We don't have a skimmer yet, that is our next major purchase. I would be very interested to see how you incorporate it into your sump. I have never had a skimmer before and am totally clueless about them.