DIY Pond Filter

Thanks to the following site for giving me ideas to build my own pond filter:

http://www.interall.co.il/filter.html

I had been unhappy with the lousy pond filter designed by the crappy contractor because it didn't filter the water properly. The damn guy just partitioned a small section of the pond with a piece of plastic and pump the water into it and expected the water to be filtered. In reality the plastic kept falling apart letting all the debris escaping back into the main pond.

Please take from my experience not to trust any contractor to design a pond. Make sure you have personally done your own research on building a pond with proper filter. Design it yourself and ask the contractor to build it. Fire him if he refuses to follow your design. DO NOT ever trust any contractor!

I have decided to build my own DIY pond filter with some ideas gained from the website stated above on Christmas eve. The duration to build one took a few hours - most of the time was "drilling" holes on a plastic container purchased from Tesco. It is an easy task even for a DIY noob like myself. Just have to be careful not to melt the holes too big at the plastic container or burn yourself with the soldering gun.

Tools:

1. Soldering gun - I use this to melt the plastic container to "drill" holes. You could use a drill for the same purpose.Soldering gun costs less than RM30.
2. Old cloth soaked with water or old newspaper for wiping plastic sticking on soldering gun. Costs RM0.

Components:

1. A square plastic container. Costs RM6+.
2. Three PVC bulkheads - one for water to flow in, one for water to flow out and another for overflow. Costs RM1.50 each.
4. One PVC "hose connector". Costs RM1.50 each.
5. One PVC adapters to join my hose connector and bulkhead that have different diameters. Costs RM1.50 each.
6. Water hose that fits your "hose connector" for water to flow into your filter. I use 2 types of hose to fit the powerhead and the PVC bulkhead. Costs RM2 per meter.
7. Filter media you wish to put inside your filter. The cost depends on what you put.
8. Powerhead. Costs RM0 because I re-use old one.

PVC bulkhead:

PVC "hose connector":

PVC adapter:

Here are the steps to build the filter:


1. Mark the diameter of bulkhead by drawing circles on the plastic container. One circle for water inflow (near the top of the container). One circle at the bottom of the container for water outflow. Another circle slightly lower than the water inflow circle for overflow. The overflow circle could be at the side of the container or any place you want (depending on your requirement). The overflow is optional but it is good to overcome water overflowing in case the outflow is blocked.

2. Melt the plastic container where it is marked with the circles with soldering gun. You may want to wear a mask. You may need an old newspaper or old cloth to wipe off the plastic sticking on the soldering gun every now and then.

3. Install the bulkheads into the holes.

4. At the bulkhead of the water inflow, connect the PVC adapter and hose connector. Your filter is completed!

5. Test the filter by filling in water to test for any leakage at the bulkheads. Fix it if necessary.

6. Connect one end of the water hose to the powerhead and the other end to the water inflow bulkhead.

7. Add the filter media into the plastic container aka your new filter box.

8. Turn on the powerhead when it's placed in the pond to test run the filter.

My DIY Pond Filter:

Internal Section of The DIY Pond Filter:

Love-Hate Affair With Britpop

Looking out of the window, I saw haze that reminded me of the mist of England in 1996-1997 era when I was there. Upon stepping on the soil of England, it was like being in heaven with the ability to tune in to the good old BBC Radio 1 (outside London, I didn't have XFM's radio reception) to be able to listen to alternative music bands rather frequently. Malaysia had Time Highway Radio (THR) playing a bit of those stuff then but they were insufficient.

After 3 months I began to feel sick of day-in day-out listening to something they called Britpop especially bands such as Oasis, Blur and Pulp (the sequence is based on my hate priority) that I would not hesitate to turn off the volume whenever I heard them on the radio. You could hear these bands on the airwave more than 10 times per day. To make the situation worse, sometimes the same songs were being repeated multiple times per day. Soon, the Britpop phenomena turned worse as Oasis and Blur started their stupid childish verbal wars on each other. These news were all over the media (radio, newspaper & music magazines) in England. Soon, I added bands such as Suede, Echobelly, Menswear, Dodgy, Sleeper, Supergrass, Ocean Colour Scene, Cast, The Verve, etc into my hate list. Manic Street Preachers, Elastica and Ash were not in my hate list because Manic had that American rock sound and the other two bands had the punk sound as well as the right punk attitude. The Boo Radleys also escaped my hate list because they sound very refreshing, catchy and unique in their own way despite being labeled as Britpop. Those days I missed non-typical British sound so badly. So bands like The Cardigans, The Wannadies, Sepultura, Smashing Pumpkins, 3D's, The Fall, etc were very refreshing to me.

Today, I don't hate Britpop as I used to anymore due to the fact that I have started to miss my former number one hated bands Oasis and Blur after returning to Malaysia for more than a decade. I guess when you have been overfed with similar sounding music, you tend to choke, vomit and tend to stay away from them. As you take them away for decades, you may start to miss what you have not heard for a long period.

List of Aquarium Plants I Have Experienced

Carpet plants:
Echinodorus tenellus (old name)/Elianthium tenellum (new name) - widely known as tenellus, fast growing
Japanese hair grass - somehow slow growth based on my experience
Common hair grass - somehow slow growth based on my experience
Lileaopsis brasiliensis - submerged - died. Emersed - successful but slow growth
Glosso - all dead with NPT - could be insufficient light
Hydrocotyle verticillata- melted or stunted in NPT. Successful in a tank with ADA Amazonia soil and CO2 supplied
Marsilea hirsuta - easy but slow growth
Cryptocoryne parva - died in submerged form but slow growth in emersed form

Mid ground:
Blyxa japonica - reasonably easy to grow but may die off out of a sudden if something goes wrong (i.e. being messed by fishes...digging)
Various Cryptocoryne wendtii (such as green gecko)  - easy
Bacopa monnieri - not looking good. Dump to emersed setup for testing
Bacopa caroliniana - easy but got bored of it
Marsilea quadrifolia - very easy but seems to be killed by plants disease now
Hemianthus micranthemoides - supposed to be easy but mine melted due to lack of light. Still testing after replacing the lighting.
Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia - easy

Background:
Potamogeton gayi - easy to grow but sensitive to Seachem Excel
Corkscrew vallisneria - easy to grow
Cyperus helferi - killed by what I believe is plant disease
Tonina sp. 'Belem' - initially quite easy but disappeared from the tank after a while. Alien abduction?
Green rotala - melted in NPT but growing relatively easy floating in an outdoor pail & emersed form
Limnophila sp. "Vietnam" - melted
Ludwigia repens - easy
Hygrophila polysperma - grew too awful in NPT
Sagittaria subulata - easy
Cryptocoryne balansae - relatively easy initially but went missing now
Water wisteria - very easy but it's too big
Pogostemon sp Babien Laos - easy
Limnophila sp. Vietnam - melted
Myriophyllum mattogrossense - easy
Myriophyllum tuberculatum - slow growth
Limnophila aromatica - melted
Vallisneria nana - died
Vallisneria spiralis - easy
Cryptocoryne spiralis - easy but went missing
Pogostemon stellatus 'Octopus' - very easy
Hygrophila polysperma 'Ceylon' - very easy

Hygrophila pinnatifida - easy but slow growth

Floating:
Elodea/Egeria densa - good for fry
Hornwort - good for fry
Duckweed - truly a weed, could be annoying
Cabomba - annoying as it keeps breaking off
Salvinia natans - truly a weed, could be annoying but not as annoying as duckweed
Water lettuce/Pistia stratiotes - very easy

Attached to driftwood/rocks:
Spiky moss - easy but beware of hair algae
Christmas moss - easy but beware of hair algae
Taiwan moss - easy but beware of hair algae
Java moss - easy but beware of hair algae
Weeping moss - Growth is too slow. 2nd attempt seems successful
Riccia - annoying as it kept floating every now and then
Anubias nana - eaten by Kribs
Anubias nana 'petite'  - eaten by Kribs
Java fern - needs colder temperature
Mini Java fern -  needs colder temperature
Philippines fern - needs colder temperature
Windelov - needs colder temperature
Narrow leaf fern - died
Bolbotis - died during my first 3-4 attempts. Currently trying again and it seems to be growing.
Subwassertang - very easy