gmen4life

well i use a cascade 700 canister,2 casade 300 HOB and under gravel with 100 GPH power heads. so is this a good set up on my tank? i also heard undrgravel is not the way to go should i turn off my power heads? i use carbon and zeolite and bio rings in my canister. the tank is 5 weeks old shows low ammonia and nitrates are 5ppm now so i belive im close to cycled. the nitrites are .25ppm i added way to many fish in the begining and learned my lesson with daily testing and every other day water changes!!!!!

Butterfly

Recommended gph is 10x the size of the tank so... 55g X 10 =550 gph if you have that you are good. If you turn the power heads off the water won't circulate under the UGF.
UGF's aren't recommended because they get all gunky (I like that word) under neath. eventually it will have to be cleaned under and you have to tear the tank down to do so.
Let us know how the tank progresses and we love pics too
Carol

gmen4life

ok so iam better off just shutting down power heads now then without them i should have enough ill have to pst pics soon

Butterfly

Water won't circulate under the UGF if you shut the powerheads off. This may cause dead spots and that's not good.
carol

pepetj

I love extra filtration!
Canisters and Wet/Dry filters usually work great at turnover rates as low as 4 times the tank volume. Your canister works at 185GPH (bit over three times turn over for a 55gal).
Then you have a 300GPH in your HOB (bit over five times turn over for a 55gal)
I consider your setting as well covered as filtration goes if you stock reasonably.

As for the UGF... why not use it in reverse flow mode? This will improve your mechanical filtration and likely prevent anaerobic pockets in the substrate.

Just a thought.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

harpua2002

I'm with Pepe for sure on this one. If you are going to run your UGF, run it as a reverse UGF. If you are not going to use it, I would suggest removing the plates from under your substrate or else detritus will become trapped under the plates. I'm not much on UGFs but I think that if they are maintained properly they have their place. They can be a good bio filter, it's just more work than I personally want to deal with.

I think you are good to go on filtration regardless of what you choose to do with your UGF.

gmen4life

well actually i have 2 hob cascade 300,s and the canister

pepetj

Even better!

Pepe
Santo Domingo