Printable airlift underground filter

thingiverse

A ground airlift filter for 40...200L aquarium. That's you need: Two standart 0.33..1 L PET bottles. If you have a big aquarum, or there will be lots of fish, bigger bottles recomended. Sure that you can put bottles into the aquarium ground, and it will all hide. It's good that your ground depth is 10 mm or more bigger then bottle diameter. Any 25mm/1" tube, 100mm less length than your aquarium height. If you want a powerful filter, you can use two tubes and two compressor. I use a chemical glass tube. Aquarium filter ceramic cylinders or any porous material you can put into bottles for bacterials housing. This material should not interfere with the flow of water. Two standart aquarium airstones, 20-25 mm cylinders or spheres are good. Air stone can clog or broke, so it is good to have two airstones even if you use one 25mm tube. A silent and powerfull compressor, 100-150 l/h or more. That's you will do: Print the parts. Do not use PLA if you want the filtes working more than 1-2 years. If you will use only one tube (like me), print the tip. If you use two tubes, print two "corner" parts. Do not use light colours for the "corner" part, otherwise it will soon looks dirty. Do lots of small holes into bottles bottoms and sides near the bottom. You can use dremel, drill or small soldering iron. Holes diameter must be smaller then main ground fraction, 1-2 mm for 2.5-3 mm fraction is good. Total holes area shall be 500 sq.mm or more in each botte, so you have to do lots of holes. Put ceramic cylinders into your bottles. 100% feeling needed for good bio filtration. Put your airstones into the main detail, glue them and connect the hoses. Screw bottles into main detail. Dig the ground in the corner you will install filter (if there is ground in aquarium). Connect the big tube(s) to the main detail. If you use one tube, connect the tip into another hole. Put the construction into aquarium. Upper side of the tube(s) shall be 40..70mm underwater. Bury the bottles and the main detail of filter. There shall be 10mm of ground or more over the bottles. Start the compressor, pour water if needed. Connect the "corner" detail(s). Air bubbles produce lots of small water spray. If you have an aquarium lights near the place that bubbles floats, use a small transparent cover. You can made it from another bottle or from the CD case. I use this filter about one year, so that is how to maintain it: Stop the compressor and clean the ground near bottles using an aquarium siphone. There will be lots of slime near the bottle holes. I do it even 2 month, but if you have lot of fish such goldfish or crucian, you need to do it more often, may be ever two weeks. Do not forget that the compressor should not be off more then one hour, otherwise bacterias in filter can die (cause it will be no any water flow) and aquarium bio balance can be broken. If you use a transparent tube and there are some untransparent scurf into it, remove the "corner" part and clean the tube using special brush. I did it two times by year.