I've been looking into trying the needle wheel method for distributing CO2 with a little powerhead. However, I've been wondering why a simpler solution would not work and I cannot think of one.

I have a canister filter. If it is strong enough, could I modify the impeller to be a needle wheel and then simply run the CO2 hose directly into the filter intake in the tank (just put a hole in the prefilter and run it thru)?