Home Made Filter Question?

this probably won't be used in a fish tank but I just wanted to see if it would work- ok so here we go, i was just thinking that is i made a small box maybe 15cm x 15cm and put it in the corner of the aquarium hanging over the water and put a pipe siphoning water from the tank into the box and the box had holes drilled in the bottom for the water to drain through back into the water. except if the box had filter sponge and rocks in it so the water had to pass through the sponge and filter to get to the drainage holes would it be filtered in the box and then drip back into the tank thereby filtering it. would this work?