beginnings of a new outlet for Fluval canisters with the black ribbed tubing

[jbrady33]

The new Fluval canisters come with ribbed black tubing, and in the tank there is a bright white/grey rubber connector for the output (a bright milky white nozzle) and the intake (bright milky white tube & strainer).

I replaced the intake strainer with a foam prefilter (keeping the priming ball valve) and ended up with this: (sorry about the crappy cell phone picture, and the tank was very bare then)



Got rid of the bubbles on the glass

I replaced the milky intake tube with a piece of black polyethylene from Home Depot (it is in the sprinkler plumbing section, sold as Toro brand "funny pipe"). Cut to length with a plastic tubing cutter, it jams very nicely into the black ribbed tubing, air tight fit with no rubber connector needed, and now the distracting intake tube blends nicely into the background. (pics coming)

Did some more digging in the sprinkler section and came up with this:
(how about these mad MSPaint skills? )



Plan on cutting the housing off at an angle about half way up - now I have an all black outlet! Not anywhere near elegant enough to be called a 'lily pipe'.

Before I do the cutting and stuff - do you think it would be ok if the outlet was down low in the tank pointing up (and slightly forward)? any bad things about that idea?

[Complexity]

What are you going to use for an intake strainer?

I can never understand why the manufacturers of canisters don't use black plumbing for the intake and outflow tubing. They're all equally bad; although, white is probably the worst. It makes no sense. You'd think at least one of them would catch on and start using black tubing by now.

[Diana]

I have usually seen lily pipes aimed horizontally, not vertically. If your cut off pop up sprinkler body is supposed to be at all similar I am not sure that vertical is the right direction. With more marlex (swing elbows) and a black 'cut off' style riser (sprinkler section again) you can make it any height and any angle. It will be adjustable so you can figure out the best orientation.

[jbrady33]

this is my intake:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...m?pcatid=21426

Diana - didn't know that, for some reason I thought the outlet pointed towards the surface, but looking at pictures now I see what you mean. You are right, the one I have can be easily changed to shoot horizontally.

Actually the stock outflow does, and I have plenty of surface movement (a 406 in a 36 gallon tank will do that ) I have the outflow pointed into the opposite wall about 3/4 of the way up, I can see the surface circulation and the plants at the bottom of the tank all have a gently sway.

[bgallodoro24]

I have the g6 and everything came black.

[MichaelMcG]

any pics of it running?

[jbrady33]

I think this project is dead. Turned out looking like i wanted:



Fit the pipe just fine, if I blew through the end there didn't seem to be much resistance - but the flow with this on dropped to almost nothing. Could barely feel water coming out of it - the stock outlet feels like a faucet on high. must be the internal structure of the bends in the sprinkler fittings.

[blink]

It's probably due to the much larger opening in comparison to the size of tube.
Flow is probably the same but pressure will drop massively, kind of the opposite of pinching the end of your garden hose