I made a homemade filter...and it works great!

15 years ago

A couple of days after reading posts here and looking up stuff on the 'net, I tried making my own homemade pond filter.

I had a swimming pool pump and filter going in there. I got it from a used swimming pool on craigslist. It was not cleaning the water very well at all.

So I took the pump out of the housing and found that the pump itself could be submerged.

I bought two collanders from the Dollar Tree store. Then I bought a yard of quilting batting.

I "hinged" the collanders together with a couple of zip ties.

I put a plastic perforated filter cap thingy over the inlet of the pump and then wrapped the pump in the quilting batting. Then I shoved the whole wad into the two collanders. I used one screw to close the collanders.

There is a long outlet tube that runs from the pump, out of the collanders, and over to a waterfall.

Then I stirred the water all up to make a green soup, came out in the morning and it was all clear! It is a small pump but it says it does 1000 gph, and my pond is only 220 gallons, so it filters it pretty quickly.

We got six fish from a friend a few days ago and now we can see the fish and the bottom of the pond!

It's so fun! The fish are pretty large goldfish and are rather tame; if you put your hand in, they come up to you, and you can kind of even handle them!

My next step is to figure out how I can make the filter collander ball more "attractive" or blend in more.

---Katy

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Comments (11)

horton
15 years ago
Katy, glad to hear the colanders and batting worked for you and that your pond water is now clear.

A word of caution however.

I would remove the quilt batting, now your pond is clear and use the nylon pot scrubbers[the ones shaped like a bun ] as the filter media.
There is a possibility that the batting could become plugged up and consequently, starve your pump of the proper flow of water required.
Especially with the "plastic perforated filter cap thingy" over the pump intake.
If the cap and the batting plug up and the flow through the pump diminishes, there could be damage done to your pump.

It is okay to control or limit, the out-flow of a pump, but never limit the in-flow/intake.

Take care,
"Horton"
thecitychicken
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks! I have fun messing around with the "set-up" of the whole pond, so it's fun for me.
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sheepco
15 years ago
Katy, my guess is that in a few weeks the collanders will have a nice thin coat of algae on them and they won't be so ugly. Or you can dry them off, spray paint them black with a non-toxic paint....and they'll still turn green in a few weeks :)
bwalters
15 years ago
Sounds great, Katy- I'd love to see pics of you have them.
bwalters
15 years ago
*if* you have them...
thecitychicken
Original Author
15 years ago
I know, I can't believe I didn't take pictures of the whole process! I always take pictures of stuff. As I was constructing the filter thingy I was thinking that I should be taking pictures and making a whole instructional web page for it. But there are other instructional pages out there. But yeah, I will take some pics of the pond and filter tomorrow. Until then, here's a video I took yesterday of my six new fish! They are the first fish to be in the pond, and they seem to like it. They are really tame; you can even sort of hold them. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Katy's six new goldfish video . . .
horton
15 years ago
bwalters, if you click on the link below it will take you to a post, where you will see photographs of the colander filter set up mentioned here.
Just scroll down the thread when you get there.
"Horton"
horton
15 years ago
We will try again!

Here is a link that might be useful: colander filter
bwalters
15 years ago
Thanks Horton- that's a excellent idea, and exactly what I need to build.

I recently upgraded the filtration for my 2k gallon koi pond by DIY'ing a 55gal filter, which works great. But I need to upgrade the filtration in my 800gal goldfish pond, and I think I'll aim at building this when I get a minute.

Thanks again-
Brian.
horton
15 years ago
Brian, I think you maybe pushing the envelope a bit too much, for that small filter to do 800 gallons, without having to clean it frequently.
But give it a try and see what happens. It's not as if you have to spend a forune to make one.
Please post on how it works out.
Thanks,
"Horton"
bwalters
15 years ago
I'll defer to your expertise on that, Horton; I'll take the same idea and size the input parts appropriately.

I probably won't run out and do it tomorrow; what I have now works for the goldfish pond, as judged by the water quality numbers. More than anything else, I need it to clean out the gunk that I am sure is in there. I'll respond via this thread when I get to that project.

Thanks again...

Brian.

I made a homemade filter...and it works great!

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I made a homemade filter...and it works great!

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