DIY Filter with Media

Hi,

So been having issues with ammonia, so did a bit of research online and came to the conclusion that I can make my own unit to run inconjunction with my internal filter setup to rid me of my ammonia issues. PS try this at your own risk and research it further as I cannot be held accountable if anything goes wrong.

Went to the pet store about 2 weeks back and they sold me some Ammonia Remover added some to my internal filter but didnt seem like it did anything. What I dud was cut one of my sponges in half and put half sponge half ammonia remover stones

looks like this and to be honest I dont think it does much



So its 5 weeks in and my ammonia alert sits between 0.05-0.2 ppm as per the Seachem indicator.

So only thing I can think of is that my tank hasnt finished the cycle.

Anyways I made the following to help with the situation



This is the media I used



So Step 1: Wet the sponge thoroughly and put it in a packet and freeze it



Step 2 : Find the right size drill bit as per the bottle lid go 1 or 2 sizes down and make your hole, sponge must be frozen



I cut my sponge to the desired shape after it had defrosted



Step 3: Clean the bottle well and drill holes in the lid and the bottom of the bottle




Step 4 : Drill a hole in the side this is where the air tube will go in from the air pump, make sure its a tight fit



Step 5: Attach some suction cups luckily for me I had this part left over from my spare pump



Step 6: Sill with the stones and wash them when they are in the bottle to get rid of the fine residue and connect your air tube and install



Its currently running, but I am going to give it a mod as when I go home later on I am going to connect an air stone

To be honest I used a sponge that was meant for car cleaning, so I am going to monitor as I might put it plastic or proper aquarium sponge this was for a DIY and the fun of it

I will post a pic of the Airstone to compare the bubbles

 

I use this in my HOBs as a prefilter - https://www.brights.co.za/product/eco-fiber-filtration-1kg/

Might be an option instead of the car wash sponge?

 

Fmn716
Has this new mode made a difference in the amonia

 

@FMN716


The DIY filter idea is great and nothing wrong with it

However, Using ammonia removing stones on a tank thats not cycled is not such a good idea as you are interfering with the cycle finally being accomplished instead of making sure you correct the reason for the ammonia and the cycle taking a bit longer
This in turn means that you will never have a properly cycled tank that you can trust and if the ammonia remover suddenly stops working you will have problems

So...
Why have you still got ammonia?

There isnt enough bacteria to turn your ammonia into Nitrite and then into Nitrate
Reason could be that either there isnt enough media where enough bacteria can grow or the bacteria is taking a bit longer to get to sufficient levels
The answer would be to add a bit more media or add bacteria in a bottle, i only use Seachem Stability, to help the bacteria population to grow a bit faster

You should be testing your ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrates so you can see your cycle develop
This is my opinion.. just think about it

 

Hi it definitely did but in the end I added all the stones and it worked well


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It’s been sometime since then. I went with all natural and with a seachem tidal and my tank cracked and I lost all my fish except for 1. But yeah I only use seachem stability works amazingly


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wow, great idea