After building my 400 gallon DIY tank, I've been tweaking my filtration here and there...First off I'll note my system pushes over 4000 gallons an hour and I have quite a few BIG fish and a big waste load to deal with being all my fish eat pellets and different cut raw sea foods. For those of you that keep less and smaller fish this may not make much since to you being it be serious over kill and unnecessary. However for my fish, it's just right!
So I started off using normal filter socks I bought online and I even tried a few different ones out but my main problem with them is they wouldn't even last a day before clogging up and overfilling out the tops! I was getting tiered of having to change out filter socks every 12 hours on my tank I thought I could figure something out that would have to work better then that crap!
So I came up with these bad boy's and I made a mess of them too using all different types of filter media and seeing what would work best for me and my set up / fish. I came up with two different "Monster Socks" that I use now. The first is seen below and is my main type of sock used and for me lasts a week before clogging and needing cleaned! I made three of these for a quick change out when needed plus they clean out easy. The second sock I made was just like the ones seen below but geared more for polishing the water in where I used much finer filter materials. The nice thing about having these around, is I can swop out the socks within seconds and polish the water before company or taking photo's of my fish for that clear, crisp photo or if I just added a new piece of wood and wanted to filter out the leaching tan color from the water... Anyway these work kickass for me and I thought I'd share them with all of you in case you also have ran into the same types of problems I have and are tiered of changing filter socks everyday. This is a cheap and effective way to get better results then your standard store bought filter socks -
Take a 3 gallon painters bucket and drill out your holes.
Cut out the filter media to fit the bottom of your bucket.
Then wrap the walls of the inner bucket with filter media like this.
Here, I'm using old air tubing cut and tied to fit tight and it acts like a rubber band around the rim to keep the filter media in place. Quick, easy, durable and will last over and over again.
Here, I've cut a piece of felt to place on the bottom of the bucket, the blue filter media will go over top of this. This helps filter out smaller items and polishes your water.
Here I show you a normal store bought filter sock next to my Monster 3 gallon sock! No compression IMO
Here's one of my Monster Socks in action!
Here's one after a week, clogged up and overflowing... But still filtering a good % of the water. Time to change out!
Thanks for Looking!
So I started off using normal filter socks I bought online and I even tried a few different ones out but my main problem with them is they wouldn't even last a day before clogging up and overfilling out the tops! I was getting tiered of having to change out filter socks every 12 hours on my tank I thought I could figure something out that would have to work better then that crap!
So I came up with these bad boy's and I made a mess of them too using all different types of filter media and seeing what would work best for me and my set up / fish. I came up with two different "Monster Socks" that I use now. The first is seen below and is my main type of sock used and for me lasts a week before clogging and needing cleaned! I made three of these for a quick change out when needed plus they clean out easy. The second sock I made was just like the ones seen below but geared more for polishing the water in where I used much finer filter materials. The nice thing about having these around, is I can swop out the socks within seconds and polish the water before company or taking photo's of my fish for that clear, crisp photo or if I just added a new piece of wood and wanted to filter out the leaching tan color from the water... Anyway these work kickass for me and I thought I'd share them with all of you in case you also have ran into the same types of problems I have and are tiered of changing filter socks everyday. This is a cheap and effective way to get better results then your standard store bought filter socks -
Take a 3 gallon painters bucket and drill out your holes.
Cut out the filter media to fit the bottom of your bucket.
Then wrap the walls of the inner bucket with filter media like this.
Here, I'm using old air tubing cut and tied to fit tight and it acts like a rubber band around the rim to keep the filter media in place. Quick, easy, durable and will last over and over again.
Here, I've cut a piece of felt to place on the bottom of the bucket, the blue filter media will go over top of this. This helps filter out smaller items and polishes your water.
Here I show you a normal store bought filter sock next to my Monster 3 gallon sock! No compression IMO
Here's one of my Monster Socks in action!
Here's one after a week, clogged up and overflowing... But still filtering a good % of the water. Time to change out!
Thanks for Looking!
