A garden pond represents its own small biotope. Numerous plants thrive here, both on the bank and in the water. The latter sometimes includes unpleasant algae that reduce the water quality in the long term, do not look particularly attractive and can even be dangerous to fish. Do you still have an unused rain barrel? Perfect, then use the following instructions to build an effective pond filter.
How can I build a pond filter myself from a rain barrel?
To build a pond filter from a rain barrel, you need 5 rain barrels, a pump, brushes, filter mats, a UVC lamp, pipes, rubber passages and granules. With this multi-chamber filter system you can clean the pond water in five stages by filtering it using light cleaning, brushes, granules and two different filter mats.
Required materials
- 5 rain barrels
- a pump
- around 15-20 brushes
- one fine and one coarse filter mat
- a UVC lamp (€139.00 on Amazon) (alternatively, a classic lamp is also possible)
- Pipes (4 connecting pieces, 10 pipes at a 90° angle, 10 pipes in a straight orientation, and 5 additional pipes)
- 10 rubber passages
- Granules
Construction instructions
With these instructions, your water goes through five different cleaning cycles:
- 1. Barrel: light cleansing and whirlpool
- 2. Bin: Brushes
- 3. Ton: Granules
- 4. Bin: coarse filter mats
- 5. Bin: fine filter mats
The bins are connected to each other accordingly. To make construction easier, it is advisable to install the connecting pipes later. This gives you more mobility.
- Drill holes in each barrel about 4 cm below the top edge.
- Attach the rubber seals to the pipe connections.
- Place a pipe vertically in the first bin.
- The end hits the edge immediately, so that the escaping water later starts rotating.
- Put the UVC lamp in the bin.
- Put a pipe in the second bin too.
- However, this points vertically downwards.
- In addition, install the brushes.
- Put the granules and an air bubble stone into the third bin.
- Fill the last two bins with the coarse or fine filter mats.
- In the last step, install a pump in front of the filter system.
- Now you can start a test run.
