Under Gravel Filter

[RichardChen]

I had under gravel filter in my first fish tank 30 years ago.  Now I am starting keeping fish again and wow, so much more knowledge about fish keeping had been explored and in the other hand, more confusion to me as a beginner.

There are a lot of pros and cons about this filter in various publication and forum. especially when keeping Cichlids. Below are my questions about ugf.

1.  How often the gravel has to be vacuumed when using ugf?
2.  The cichlids in my tank like to use the Holey rocks as the ceiling and dig a bowl below until the bottom glass is shown.  Will ugf work well with this behavior?
3.  Can live plant properous with ugf?

Thank you for helping.

[Brownsnoutuk]

Re: Under Gravel Filter

1. Never. The UGF becomes a biological filter, if you vacuum it you remove the beneficial bacteria. If it starts looking dirty, you can vacuum it in stages.

2. They'll probably dig down to the UGF and leave it exposed. It wont hurt any.

3. Im pretty sure they live better aslong as you have a thick substrate. All the nutrients in the tank will be sucked down into the gravel bed, where it can be absorbed by the roots.


Someone chip in if im wrong.

[RichardChen]

Re: Under Gravel Filter

I am not sure about "vacuum in stages"?

When I set up my tank, I used 150 lbs of substrate for 125 gallon tank.  Is this amount of substrate thick enough?

[Brownsnoutuk]

Re: Under Gravel Filter

Vacuum the left half of the tank first, then the right half 2 weeks later. Or front and back.

[RichardChen]

Re: Under Gravel Filter

Oh, I see.  Thank you.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: Under Gravel Filter

for some reason I can't post what I wanted to post.....403 permission denied.

[spyke1969]

Re: Under Gravel Filter

403 permission denied:  translated to mean: to many posts for you

[eklikewhoa]

Re: Under Gravel Filter

Probably....

time for bashing and trolling then....