Air lift system - DIY

[WFA Filtration]

Dear bros and sis,

Time to share some DIY to help to bring back this hobby to life!

managed to pick up this air-lift technology during a lunch meet-up with one of our supplier and decided to give it a try on my own tank

This technology has been in used for quite a number of years and very popular in Europe where DIY is a "In" thing. They are using it mainly for their koi ponds, deep wells (where motor pumps tends to clog easily from the debris), aquaculture system.

So this system basically uses air (from your air pump/compressor) to move water upwards to where it's required.
With just an air pump, this system is able to move water upwards to your filter or from your filter back to your tank. Saves you $$ from high watt powerheads.
One application where it can come into handy will be when there's a power trip. I believe most monsterfishkeepers will have a back up ACDC air pump to help to provide aeration to your fishes but we often just leave out our bio filtration system which requires oxygen for the BB to grow. by connecting this air lift system to your ACDC pump, it will provide oxygen to your fishes and at the same time continue to pump water into your filter system and back to your tank. (if you are using IOUS system or OHF)

here's a short video of my simple DIY on trial in my IOUS tank: (do note that its on trial, so I didn't position it at the return compartment of my IOUS.) Just want to demonstrate the water flow.

YouTube Video

Simple parts you need:


Happy DIY guys!! you can view more videos of Air lift systems from youtube.

[WFA Filtration]

Step by step guide by the German pros on how the pressure chamber is made can be found here: (pai sae, no sub title, just got to base on the video image)

YouTube Video

[canopy]

bro,

is that a washer or O-ring?

[joonpeng_lee]

Good for water change too!
Upz!

[WFA Filtration]

Originally Posted by canopy

bro,

is that a washer or O-ring?

To seal the pressure chamber, I cut out two portion from a 20mm pvc coupling (the one that we use to connect two 20mm pvc pipes together)

you may experience minor air leak, so what I do is to seal it with pvc glue and on top of it, I use a thin layer of silicon to seal up all the gaps

[DragonFireSG]

Airlifts are a great way to move a massive amount of water. They do need to be precisely engineered for best effect.

I was exploring the use of airlifts when building my koi pond. Unfortunately the lack of an area to test designs, and the desire to use a shower in my system made me fall back to a more traditional pumped approach.

I am still exploring the use of an airlift to recirculate water in my pond. That will be a project for later when I have some free time on my hands.

[wilsonawt]

Interesting concept


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tco]

Thanks for sharing

[Markus]

very interesting, will try this during my next break
thanks for sharing

[fireblade]

wah! makes me wanna try to DIY a water changing system!!
care to share how you connect the airstone? looks interesting