fishlover78

Hi everyone, I was sitting here just thinking about filters and such, and I had a wacky idea, turning a under gravel filter into a mechanical filter. what if you took a regular under gravel filter, and when you installed it in a new tank put tons of filter floss under it and use the same aeration or power head to pull the water through the filter plate. this way the water would be drawn through the filter floss, and wala! you have a giant mechanical filter. and since most of us never change the mechanical media you wouldn't need to worry about changing the floss, and this would also leave no room for the accumulation of mulm (krud) under the filter plate. what do you think of this idea? please respond, your input would be greatly appreciated! -fishlover78

Butterfly

The krud would all be in the floss under the plates
With floss in a regular HOB filter it gets rinsed once in a while and the stuff is gone from the tank. Under the plates it would stay there. just my
Carol

fishlover78

thanks for the input Butterfly, so the krud would still accumulate under the plate but the filter would double as a mechanical filter and a biological filter. the krud accumulates either way. anyone else?

griffin

correct me if i'm wrong, but i think she's saying that with a regular filter, you can remove the crud by rinsing the filter floss, but with the UGF, the crud would just accumulate under the ugf plate in the floss.

also, adding floss under the ugf plate would change your flow properties and you'd likely need stronger flow to push the same amount of volume.

maybe i'm not seeing it clearly, but i don't know if this idea is too great :/

Butterfly

Thats exactly what I was saying ! I haven't been explaining myself very well lately, thanks
carol

griffin

np we all have those days.

fishlover78

thanks guys, but if I was using a power head not and airlift to power it would it would then?