DIY Pond Filter Made EASY From Trash Can!

on today's video I am going to show you everything that you would need to do to take a little trash can and turn it into a DIY pond filter capable of handling even your biggest of at-home ponds let's get into it what is up everybody and welcome to today's video for those of you that are new to the channel my name is Zack this is SC fishkeeping I appreciate you stopping by please hit that subscribe button down below if you have not already just in case you missed my last video we set up this hundred and ten gallon stock tank pond and we did it for less than a dollar per gallon one of the things I talked about in that video was the filtration was just fine but we could do better and that's exactly what we're gonna do today just like I said in the intro we're gonna take this little 10 gallon trash can and turn it into a pond filter capable of turning this pond over ten times an hour now before you actually start building your filter to me there are three important categories that you kind of need to think through before you decide to start building the first one is going to be what type of container do you want to use there are so many different options of containers that you could choose you could use one of these little stair lengths and a hard plastic totes you could actually take everything that I'm going to show you as we build this and do it on this and have just a more compact version of what we're talking about but I said we're gonna use a trash can and so I got a trash can this is just a 10 gallon trash can that I got on sale from Menards a home-improvement store for about $9 if you had a bigger project you could use one of the like 32 gallon Brut trash cans I'm going to include some tips throughout this video that I've picked up right here this is going to be the first and one of the most important tips that could save you from flooding your own fish room as I've done and filtration all starts with a high-quality pump to me there is no better bang for your buck than these J BAU DCT marine pumps this is the 4000 it's one of the smallest pumps that they make meaning it's not going to take up much space inside your pond or aquarium but then it also comes with this really nice little controller you can adjust the speed up and down and then it also gives you a 10-minute feed time so you're not sucking and all the food that you just throw into your pond little cheap sponges like these things come in a 3-pack from Walmart you could also use little pot scrubbies you find it like a dollar store on Amazon polyfill is like a quilt padding material to get this at Walmart as well and then just a whole mess of lava rocks that's all I'm going to use for my media then quick look at everything else that you're gonna want you're gonna need the lid for the trashcan I'm using some one-inch PVC with a few end caps 90 degree connectors and a t-connector you're going to want some PVC cutter these are called uniseal so I'll have a link to these down below these are what I use to actually well you'll see you know seals you're gonna want some sort of basket with some holes in it some PVC cement a little bit of silicon you don't want to drill with the drill bit and then one of these like drill hole saws and then like a terra cotta pot or a brick or something and again you'll see how this comes into place and that is it we are ready to start building the first thing you're gonna want to do is drill a hole in the lid of your trash can could have gone smoother it'll work next you're gonna want to actually position your trash can next to your pot this is super important I already talked about make sure you get something that's a little thicker for your container make sure you have it on a steady flat surface you can see here what I've done is just take some cinder blocks and then a couple scrap one by fours what this is going to do is it's going to prevent the bottom of your trashcan from bowing out underneath the weight of all that water if that happens the trash can will crack and it will leak so make sure your trashcan or whatever is on a flat surface I cannot stress that enough now we're going to want to drill some holes for our returns and then we'll keep going next is where the uniseal comes into play what this is is it's just a little rubber kind of seal and it's going to create a watertight seal as the water comes out of the filter and goes back into our pond you know seals are actually meant to fit this kind of curved plastic surface and you'll notice they pretty easily just pop right into the trashcan like that now you're probably thinking how do you get a watertight seal when you can just pull it out like that well when you stick the PVC in the other end it's actually going to flex the backside of it and lock the whole thing down you could use a little silicone around the edges if you wanted to but I've actually run these without any real issues just like that so next we're gonna talk about our pump this little j-val pump is gonna do close to 1,100 gallons per hour which means we could filter our pond over 10 times in an hour if we really want it to I like using just the one that slides right onto the PVC there's a number of different ways you could attach it the easiest is probably just throw a little silicone on there and then we're ready to put the pump the water now this is probably the best piece of advice I could give you on this entire filter building you don't want to just take your pump and stick it in the pond and put it right down up against your substrate what would happen if this trashcan broke if this pond were to drained because this filter was leaking in anyway the water is gonna go all the way down to the level of your pump which if it's on the bottom of your pond you're gonna drain the entire pond so how do you prevent that I use two different methods on my big ponds that I have I just have a five gallon bucket with a bunch of holes drilled in like along the bottom and the pump is actually sitting on top of there the water level would only go down until that pump was out of the water and then it would stop running you're probably gonna ruin your pump but you at least keep plenty of water in your pond your other option as you can see here is to take something like a little plastic trash can and drill a bunch of holes in it this is gonna work as like an overflow the water will fill in fall down go to your pump and then go up same thing if something were to break you're not gonna overflow your trash can and flood your floor it'll just drain that trash can and the rest of your water is safe trust me I have had freak accidents happened with both of those ponds and this method has saved my fish so for this build I'm just gonna use a terracotta pot you could also use like you can also use like rocks or stones if you wanted to go with like a little more natural look put your filter on there grab your PVC we need a longer piece and then we start cutting so I'm just gonna mark it grab my PVC cutters and cut it and catch it when it falls 90 degree elbow another piece of PVC that we also need to cut no retrieve your PVC 90 degree elbow and then grab one of your little like scrap kind of ends and then you just slide the whole thing in we need a couple more pieces of PVC right there so you'll notice as I push the PVC in here this uniseal is actually going to start to bow out right here and that's what's going to create that watertight seal around the inside as it fits in the hole like I cannot fit this in here and you just saw how easy it was for me to put that in so take your unit seal pop it in there and then you're just going to take your PVC and just kind of work it around work it in there spin it around and eventually what you'll end up with is a snug little fit and there's not going to be any water that comes out of right here and then we just got to do it on the other one and just like that we have our returns so again water is going to get sucked up go up over drain down it'll run through our media which we're going to talk about next fill up and then fall out of those two tubes and drain back into the pond creating good surface agitation good flow good movement ultimately leading to crystal-clear water so as you can see terra cotta pot goes down next thing I'm going to do is add my lava rock and fit as much of it as I can around that terracotta pot lava rock makes great cheap filter media next we're gonna take our filter basket just like this that's gonna hold all those sponges in place and then this is where this polyfill this like quilt padding comes in you just put that over the top of it you can do a couple different layers of it if you wanted and that's just gonna sit right on the top so the water is going to drain in you're kind of getting like a waters eye view here water is gonna pour in this is going to act as your first like way to kind of clean it and polish it it's going to go through the sponges it's gonna hit all the lava rocks overflow and fill out but one issue that we have is we are working with a straight tube which is just going to make a jet of water and it'll let carve a hole in this filter pad we're gonna make our own DIY little spray bar which is going to add extra aeration and oxygen to the water and it's gonna spread it around inside that filter making sure that the water hits all the sponges and not just that one kind of like straight stream so this is where that little t-bar comes in we want to cut two little small you just stick them into your t-bar like that we're gonna drill some holes in the side and then you cap it off with a couple of your end caps and that is a DIY spray bar that's gonna go on the inside of our trashcan so now instead of our pump draining out something like this what we're gonna have is [Music] something like this it's better next we just got to reassemble it so terracotta pot lava rock or sponge basket alright polyfill spray bar push it all together and you should have something that looks like a filter now are we done not a chance this is just the point of water testing and one of the things you're gonna notice is we have a leak there we have a leak there but no leaks down there so how do you fix the leaks up here PVC cement this is just kind of the trial run the test fit make sure everything works well and is the way you want it before you submit this stuff in but when you submit this piece and this piece in you're not going to get any of those drips make sure you don't cement your spray bar in or you'd never be able to take this lid off this way you can actually still separate the lid get in there change your filter media do all the maintenance and stuff that you need but this is just kind of a trial run a few moments later so let's fast forward a couple days and this is how the pond looks after being up and running and everything cemented in you'll notice I took the pump out from being right there and running just like straight up and I actually put it in this black box right here you'll notice there's some holes drilled in so the water can still go this is how I'm doing like that overflow but the pump runs up over down along the side of the house and then up the back and then it drains in there still fills up it overflows but it gives it a more clean appearance I can actually kind of hide some of this I might even paint the PVC black just to really make the whole thing blend in but this water is absolutely crystal clear which means we are just about ready for some fish so that's how it's going to sit for a while that is my DIY trashcan pond filter and I hope you guys enjoyed watching this build I hope you guys learned something let me know down in the comments if this is something that you think you would build or any ways that you would like tweak it or improve it to make it your own again that's the fun of doing these DIY projects I still need to escape this I still need to beautify it and we're going to add some fish I need you also to let me know what to have a fish you want a lot of people in my last videos that goldfish and a lot of people said crappie so kind of two different thoughts there but hopefully enjoy this one I'm still working on the user-submitted fish feeding clip video if you haven't sent me any fish feeding clips of your own and you want to be featured email them to me at SC fish feeding at gmail.com and I'm gonna start working on that video here soon but yeah hopefully you guys enjoyed this one again hopefully you learned something thanks for watching and as always this is Zack with SC fishkeeping reminding you that every fish is a keeper thanks guys [Music] [Music]

Channel: SC Fish Keeping

Views: 849,656

Rating: 4.8995461 out of 5

Keywords: diy pond filter, diy pond, diy pond filter bucket, diy pond filter and pump, sc fish keeping, diy pond filter media, diy pond filter system, diy pond filter 5 gallon bucket, diy pond filter waterfall, backyard pond, building a pond, indoor pond, outdoor pond, aquarium fish, diy pond filter 55 gallon barrel, pond filter, pond, koi pond, indoor pond diy, easy pond filter, catch em all fishing, joey slay em, king of diy, ohio fish rescue, finatic, jacob feder, paul cuffaro

Id: N9zVLh2dGt0

Length: 13min 43sec (823 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2020