Make your own automated & self-cleaning aquarium filters

Hi, I'm Charles Lales, and here you'll find how to build by yourself the ultimate filter for freshwater aquarium. You'll get more time to enjoy your tank and less stress to maintain best conditions you can provide to fishes you care about. 

It is based on my own experience and is not aimed to generate financial benefit. You'll find there a lot of info, but this up to you to follow these procedures and result is your own responsibility.

Existing roll paper fleece filters

If you're afraid of building yourself such system, you can simply buy one of these systems.
List is not necessary exhaustive, feel free to sugest! There is no particular order, except maybe kind of oldest-newest.
Prices are only indicative from 2023.09 in Germany. 

• Theiling Rollermat Aqua -> 350€

• ClariSea SK 3000 Gen3  up to 3000 L/h-> 330€

• RedSea ReefMat 250 up to 3500 L/h -> price not published yet, ReefMat 500 -> 350€

• Arka Core CFF-1 up to 5000 L/h -> 300€

• Royal Exclusiv Dreambox, e.g. first price compact rolling fleece filter -> 480€

These roll filters are only the mechanical filtration from following DIY system.. and you already have to invest min 300€ for a brand new one..
Also, I started to develop and build my own system few years before solution from RedSea or Arka came on the market..

DIY ultimate aquarium filter

Ultimate filter? Hum... already read it so many times?

How can I pretend it is, at least for freshwater?

Well, quite simple: there's no other option making such a good job and in same time, with such low maintenance requirement. As fish keeper since long time, and not really a low tech guy, I tested many conventional filtrations, mostly internal filters and canisters. You can easily find on the internet exhausting listing of filters, with more of less volume of filtration, flow, filtration material and even some times including heater or UV.

All these filters suffer from 2 main limitations or constraints:

• Mechanical filtration stop fish waste, decayed plant materials, and other debris but keep this organic mater in water system

• Biological filtration, coming after mechanical filtration, may clog over time, with water and oxygen distribution diverging from optimal

A third limitation is related to water flow through all filter material: mechanical, chemical or biological, all these water treatment method should have different water flow to perform at their optimal. It is well understood that an UV sterilizer will require kind of derivation from main water circulation, otherwise  you'll need to oversize it in order to deal with main water flow. It is the same with biological filtration, there is no need and can even be counterproductive  to run it at the same water flow as the mechanical filtration.

To develop these filters was quite an adventure: 8 months of development, 5 prototypes before to get satisfying results, surprisingly no water damage (at least, none directly related..), and the uncertainty to keep alive your life stock if at anytime you make a stupide mistake..

I'd like to thank some aquarists that inspire and motivate me to start this adventure: 

• Terry from DIY Pond Filter (website, YouTube), such a nice guy, impressive build for ponds

• Thorben from AmazonasBecken (website, YouTube), nice guy as well, impressive build more for monster aquarium, one video serie dedicated to roll paper filter

• Ray from Ray's Reefing (YouTube), one of the first video of automatic roll paper filter

So many other aquarists pretend to have built all kind of filter possible (isn't it Joe?), but in reality only these 3 are consistent and worth the trip on this topic!