Barrel Filter

A friend needed to be able to hide his filter and the best spot for this was in the ground. This meant that the water had to come and go at the top of the barrel. We used the same basic design of a reverse flow protien skimmer, that I use on my reef tank. Water will always find the easiest way out, and in this case it has to come back up the pipe. All return pipes should be sized larger than you think you'll need, that way there will never be a problem with overflowing. In this case we used 4'' pipe.

The egg crating sits on some pieces of plastic that have been glued onto the sides of the barrel. The lower piece is about 3'' off the bottom and the top piece is about 15''to 17'' up. The return pipe feeds from about 2'' off the bottom. The bio material can be any material that you want, but the heavier it is, the more support the egg crating will need. In this case we used PVC ribbon and open pore foam for the mechanical.     A couple of 4'' toilet bowl flanges were used for bulk head unions on the return and a standard bulk head union was used on the input.