Setting up 55 gallon tank. Use an undergravel or not?

I've been out of the fish hobby for a number of years, and in that time, I'm surprised to find that undergravel filters have fallen into disfavor. At least among some aquarists!

Where I work, we've rescued some random small fish from our water treatment filters. These are probably "minnows" of some sort, but that's really a subject for another thread.

I set up a 5 gallon tank about a year and a half ago to house these fish, and they've thrived. Further, the other folks who work here have come to enjoy them. So I've brought an old 55 gallon tank and its rusty stand from home, and everyone wants to get that set up to give the fish more room. They've grown quite a bit and there are far too many for the tiny tank they're in now:



I like healthy green algae, so don't be alarmed. It eats excess nitrates, just like plants would, so I only scrape it off of the front glass and leave it everywhere else to do its (in my opinion) job. You need every advantage when you're overcrowding a tank like this, right?

When I was into the aquarium hobby many years ago, we used undergravel filters quite frequently. I never had a tank that was without one. I also used HOB, canister, and wet-dry filters (sump filters) as well, but every tank had an undergravel filter. I always thought of the UG system as the backbone of the bio-filtration since it has such an enormous bio-surface, and the "good" bacteria was right there where the debris falls, ready to chow down on it.

I never had any problems with the UG filters, and never once tore a tank apart to clean under the filter frames. And these tanks were often set up and running continuously for 15 years or more at a stretch.

One thing we always did was put a layer of the poly floss (sold at WalMart or fabric stores for use as the filler in quilts, etc.) directly on top of the filter frame, and then put the gravel on top of that. It kept gravel from being able to get down into the frames, provided more bio-surface, and prevented anything over a certain size from being able to get down below the filter frame. Perhaps that simple step is what kept us from having problems with our UG filters.

It's easy to vacuum the gravel right down to the floss, and get all of the "chunks" out when doing a water change.

Anyhow, while I will certainly be using some other filter or filters with this "new" 55, I am also tempted to put in a good-old undergravel system as well, just like I always used to do. Unless you folks talk me out of it!

I'm open to any suggestions. Since this will be a new setup, I may as well get it right on the first try. So don't take anythng I'm saying as meaning that I'm totally stuck on using a UG system. But I will say that it may be hard to convince me otherwise because I've always had such great luck with them.

So let me say why I tend to like the UGs, and then you folks can either agree with that or tell me where I'm all wet (so to speak!) ;D

OK, so here's one reason why I'm leaning in favor of using an UG system: It seems to me that if you don't actively circulate water through your substrate, it will collect debris just the same, but since it won't have oxygenated water being forced through it, the aerobic bacteria necessary to safely "digest" that debris will not be present. And instead, you'll have anaerobic bacteria which will create byproducts that are dangerous. It seems like not having an UG filter would doom you to more cleaning, not less.

Second, it seems like you'll have to make up for all of that potential bio-surface somehow else if you don't have water circulating through the substrate.

Third, when you do a filter cleaning, it's nice to have multiple "reservoirs" for your good bacteria so if you diminish or wipe out the colony in (for example a HOB) filter when cleaning it, you have plenty of "starter culture" lurking in the UG system. Of course, you can clean your HOB or other filter without totally wiping out its bacteria colony, but still, having redundant bio-colonies just seems like a good stabilizing factor in any setup.

I've read some of the articles and posts saying what's bad about an undergravel filter, and from what I read, the main complaint is that if stuff gets below the filter frame, you'll have to move all of the gravel off of that frame and lift it up to clean under it. Again, I've never seen this happen, and the stands (like the one for this particular 55) are open underneath, so I've been able to look up through the bottom glass on these aquariums, and would have been able to see any crud collecting under there. It may be that if you don't use the poly floss between the gravel and the filter frame, this is more of an issue, and that's why I have never seen it.

I worry that not using an undergravel filter will make the system less stable and make the substrate more treacherous and make it require more frequent cleaning since it'll be stagnant, and without enough actively oxygenated bacteria to help take care of itself.

What do you folks think? How do you set up your tanks without UG filters? Do you use special substrates? Do you have special ways to keep the substrates clean?

This ought to be a fun tank (assuming it doesn't leak or blow up immediately when I fill it).

I've gotten the frame ground down to bare metal with an angle grinder and wire brush (wore the brush completely out doing it), and gotten it primed with rust-converting primer. I still need to pant it, and check out the old tank, and perhaps strip out the existing silicone, and replace it. Meanwhile, the existing small tank is working great, so there's no rush. I can read what you folks say and decide how to set it up once I've digested your advice.

So HELLO from a new member, and thanks in advance for any sage advice you folks can give me on how to set this tank up to be the best that it can be - hopefully doing things right the first time.

Oh, and in case you couldn't tell, I tend to make long posts!

 

I have never used UG filters so I can't help there.
Welcome to FL!


with love and fish

 

Hello, and welcome to the forum.
I personally would not use an UGF filter on any tank
These filters are potentially a nightmare, due to the clogging of the membranes.
When the thing clogs, you will lose your filtration, and have to take out all the substrate Etc to un-glog it.
Now I think you know why they are not in favour.
This is what I would do to rehome the fish to the 55 gallon tank
1) Get the tank sorted out and basically ready for the fish ( painted Etc )
2 ) Look in a local fish shop ( LFS ) for a fairly cheap Hang on Back filter ( HOB )
3) look on this forum,s " stickys " for setting up a tank and read and understand all you can - especially about the Nitrogen Cycle
All this stuff will take you about 6 weeks in all to get the tank ready for the fish, and then you just need to move them over to their new tank.
As the fish are well in the smaller tank, you have the time to do this correctly, and I am sure the boys and girls here will help you as best they can with advice

 

Thanks for the welcomes! This seems like an active and friendly forum, for sure.

I had aquariums for many years starting in the early 1970s, but haven't had one for the last ten or fifteen years. So I'm familiar with the nitrogen cycle and the basics, and I've read most of the stickies here and a lot of other good stuff on the internet lately.

In the past, all of my tanks had undergravel filters, and at the least a HOB to supplement it. The last time I had the 55 set up, it had an undergravel filter as well as a wet/dry sump type filter and a protein skimmer. Not because most of that was needed, but because I like building things, and just wanted to play with that extra filtration. But that was in the late '90s, and since then, apparently undergravel filters have gotten a bad name.

But, in my experience, the undergravels have always worked very well and I've never seen one plug up or build up crud below the frame.

I saw a post somewhere else about a reverse-flow undergravel setup. The idea was that you used power heads with pre-filters at their inlets to pump water down the upflow tubes of your UG filter so that your water was circulated through the gravel, but from the bottom up. This kept an active colony of bacteria growing in the substrate, but helped to push debris up out of the substrate rather than draw it down into it. Then, your other tank filters really did the mechanical filtering, and the substrate was only used for a bio-filter.

That sounds interesting. But I still think you'd end up needing to vacuum your gravel because when you spread that water flow out over the entire bottom of your tank, the flow rate is still very slow. So I have to think that debris would settle to the bottom anyhow. But, maybe it wouldn't get down into the gravel very far. Beats me!

I wonder how many people here use undergravel filters these days.

 

I never had any problems with the UG filters, and never once tore a tank apart to clean under the filter frames. And these tanks were often set up and running continuously for 15 years or more at a stretch.

One thing we always did was put a layer of the poly floss (sold at WalMart or fabric stores for use as the filler in quilts, etc.) directly on top of the filter frame, and then put the gravel on top of that. It kept gravel from being able to get down into the frames, provided more bio-surface, and prevented anything over a certain size from being able to get down below the filter frame. Perhaps that simple step is what kept us from having problems with our UG filters.

...

Oh, and in case you couldn't tell, I tend to make long posts!

Yes I see you like long posts ... I've had aquariums off and on for 45 years and never used an UG filter. I would think after at most a few years nevermind 15 years a floss would be just clogged and matted and a mess so I'm very surprised to hear this. You have the experience and I would say many of us here don't so I think it would be hard to change your mind and might would be an interesting "experiment". I will be interested in hearing how this all goes for you.

 

I suspect the thing that may be hard for people who haven't used an UGF before to visualize is that when you vacuum the gravel, the suction in the tube pulls the gravel at that location up into the tube and agitates it while sucking up through the floss pad right there. This cleans the floss and the gravel quite thoroughly. You don't want to clean the floss and gravel to the point of destroying the bacteria colony, but you want to remove most of the easily movable debris.

Doing that with every water change is pretty fast, yet really keeps the gravel and floss from accumulating much gunk.

You do see it all go through the tube and into your bucket or back to the sink if you use a waterbed drainer (venturI aspirator). Nasty, but gone on a regular basis.

How do you keep the substrate in a non UGF tank clean? Wouldn't it be about the same? Or is an advantage of not using a UGF that you don't need to do the gravel vacuuming routine?

It is a bit of work, I admit. And you get to spook the fish by having your arm down in the tank for fifteen minutes or so every time. I always tried to move the rocks and stuff and get under them, too, which sometimes leads to some rearrangement of the "furniture".

But if you had live plants, that might be impossible. Maybe planted aquariums are a big reason for moving away from UGFs.

 

Nitrate factory. I used to use one back when everyone else did, but the advancement in biological media makes the UGF unnecessary. Really, its biggest advantage back in the day was the massive amount of room for bacteria to colonize.

 

Nitrate factory. I used to use one back when everyone else did, but the advancement in biological media makes the UGF unnecessary. Really, its biggest advantage back in the day was the massive amount of room for bacteria to colonize.

That's true. It's a huge bunch of surface that's in the tank anyhow, so it's kind of nice to put it to work.

Why do you say nitrate factory? Is there something about an UGF that produces more nitrate than other biofilter designs? What would be a good alternative way to set the tank up? I'm still curious as to what one does to keep a non-UGF substrate clean, and not have it go anaerobic on you.

 

That's true. It's a huge bunch of surface that's in the tank anyhow, so it's kind of nice to put it to work.

Why do you say nitrate factory? Is there something about an UGF that produces more nitrate than other biofilter designs? What would be a good alternative way to set the tank up? I'm still curious as to what one does to keep a non-UGF substrate clean, and not have it go anaerobic on you.

Yeah, when detritus accumulates in the filter bed, eventually the nitrate will reach toxic levels. Regular maintenace helps, as does getting a UGF with reverse flow capacity, and you want to make sure that there are no "black holes" that have no air / water movement. Those areas can develop dangerous bacteria pockets.

But even if you maintain the filter and have sufficient flow throughout the base, nitrate will creep up sooner or later. There's just no way to avoid it.

To keep the non-UGF tank clean, just vacuum the gravel once a week. Or, in a heavily planted tank, don't vacuum. Plants will eat what would be vacuumed up. For a 55, I would just suggest a quality canister filter. SunSun makes affordable filters that offer a lot of room to add your own media.

 

How do you keep the substrate in a non UGF tank clean? Wouldn't it be about the same? Or is an advantage of not using a UGF that you don't need to do the gravel vacuuming routine?

Without UGF you still need to gravel vacuum however there is no floss to deal with.

But if you had live plants, that might be impossible. Maybe planted aquariums are a big reason for moving away from UGFs.

And I would say you here put forth one of the biggest reasons I would not use a UGF and I didn't even think of it, I've always done planted tanks so I guess it's no surprise I've never had an UGF.

 

Try a canister I'm sure you will be like:

Where were you when I needed you years ago ?!

 

Yeah, when detritus accumulates in the filter bed, eventually the nitrate will reach toxic levels. Regular maintenance helps, as does getting a UGF with reverse flow capacity, and you want to make sure that there are no "black holes" that have no air / water movement. Those areas can develop dangerous bacteria pockets.

But even if you maintain the filter and have sufficient flow throughout the base, nitrate will creep up sooner or later. There's just no way to avoid it.

To keep the non-UGF tank clean, just vacuum the gravel once a week. Or, in a heavily planted tank, don't vacuum. Plants will eat what would be vacuumed up. For a 55, I would just suggest a quality canister filter. SunSun makes affordable filters that offer a lot of room to add your own media.

I've been looking at the SunSuns on EBAY, etc. Those look like a lot of filter for a very good price! And, as I've done in the past, even if I go with an UGF, I'd have an external filter, for sure. Perhaps that's another reason I've always had good luck with UGFs. I've always had at least one other filter in place. Either way, a fairly large one of those SunSuns seems like a great way to go.

It sounds like the issues with UGFs come from them not being cleaned thoroughly. And I can see where, in a tank with fancy decor or a planted tank, it'd be a pain (or impossible) to get to every bit of the filter. I guess another reason I've had good luck has been that I've never had planted plants (floaters and some pots, yes, but not ones planted in the gravel). So I've always just moved the rocks and other decorations as I siphon/vacuum the whole substrate/UGF. It really doesn't take much time, and in some ways is less of a mess than dealing with the sump filters and other external filters I've used in the past.

But then again, I enjoy tinkering with things, so even dealing with a cannister or sump type filter is somewhat enjoyable for me. Isn't part of the fun of this hobby the tinkering with all of the equipment? Maybe I'm strange!

But you say that even if you keep a UGF clean, the nitrate will inevitably creep up. That's something I don't understand. If you're maintaining the UGF at a constant level of cleanliness, how can things change over time? This is something I've never seen in any of mine, but I suspect it happens enough that this is what's made UGFs undesirable.

I can't help but feel that when people have had problems with UGFs, they really haven't been keeping them clean. It would be the same if you didn't keep an external filter clean, right? It's just that an external filter may be easier to clean in many (most?) cases. And that's good enough reason to avoid UGFs for most people.

I can envision a UGF, without the floss, where debris falls down through the gravel and lands below the frames where it can't be reached. And I can envision UGFs where people don't vacuum the gravel (and floss if they use it) everywhere. They miss places under decorations or near plants. So I can imagine UGFs that don't get thoroughly cleaned, and they turn into a real nasty mess.

I guess with a lot of other filters, you can have the mechanical filtration ahead of everything else, so you never have a lot of rotting detritus directly in contact with the bio-filter surfaces. So you can clean out the mechanical filter and not kill off your bio filter or even have to clean the bio filter material. With a UGF, the mechanical filtration is combined with the bio-filtration, and that might be the real issue in many ways.

I'm going to have to consider this all carefully.

I don't have any problem getting or building and using whatever kind of external filter(s) seem the best. And I don't have any reason to use an UGF if there's no downside to NOT using one. It's just that I've had such great luck with them in the past that they seem like a trusted old friend! A stabilizing influence on the tank that has always served me well.


I'm still trying to get my head around what happens in the substrate of a non-UGF tank, though.

If you clean it thoroughly, and regularly, like I have with my UGF tanks' gravel, I can see how it'd stay clean. But if you avoid areas with decorations, or don't get down to the bottom of the substrate, doesn't it develop areas with detritus rotting away, and maybe end up being even worse because, with no water flow, it can breed colonies of anaerobic bacteria?

Or do you use very fine sand so that detritus cannot penetrate down into the substrate, and then whatever falls to the bottom is easily vacuumed up off of the surface, or actually swept up by the currents from your other filter(s), more like just having a bare glass bottom, really.

Apparently people are setting up lots of tanks without UGFs, and they're not having problems, so my concerns must be unfounded. But it just seems like an undisturbed substrate would end up creating that petroleum and H2S kind of stuff that one finds just below the surface in a stagnant pond. Then again, maybe that doesn't really matter.

Without UGF you still need to gravel vacuum however there is no floss to deal with.


And I would say you here put forth one of the biggest reasons I would not use a UGF and I didn't even think of it, I've always done planted tanks so I guess it's no surprise I've never had an UGF.

NOT having a UGF might be an incentive for me to try some planted plants and generally make the tank look better. If one doesn't need to be as careful about cleaning the substrate in a non-UGF tank, then that may lend itself to more elaborate decoration of the tank.

Try a canister I'm sure you will be like:

Where were you when I needed you years ago ?!

Well, I used HOB filters and built auto-siphon sump filters (wet/dry) ones and used them back "in the day", but I didn't ever make or buy a canister type. This tank setup may be my chance to finally try one!

I have worked on municipal water treatment plants since the mid '70s, and actually work full time for one now. Part of what I do and have done is design the automation systems that control these plants, and one fun part of that is how the backwashing of the filters happens. I keep thinking it'd be amusing to set up a filter for a fish tank that does automatic backflushing just like a water treatment plant filter does.

I have plenty of the programmable automation controllers I've used to automate real plants, so it'd be easy enough to do the control system. And building a miniature version of a multi-media filter seems like it'd be a fun project.

But for now, I am looking at those SunSun units on EBAY. Most intriguing, and you can't beat the prices!

 

OP,
The actual substrate carries a load of the beneficial bacteria required for a healthy tank, so to have it sparkling clean isn't really a good option.
With the correct regime of water changes, a good HOB, Canister, or wet / dry sump filter, there are no issues with water quality.
As for going " Anaerobic ", this can be prevent by useing a gravel vac deeply, and under furniture in about a third of the tank every water change, and rotating every water change to a different section of tank.
Modern filter media such as ceramic Rings,and Purigen are far superior to an UGF ( IMO )

 

OP,
The actual substrate carries a load of the beneficial bacteria required for a healthy tank, so to have it sparkling clean isn't really a good option.
With the correct regime of water changes, a good HOB, Canister, or wet / dry sump filter, there are no issues with water quality.
As for going " Anaerobic ", this can be prevent by useing a gravel vac deeply, and under furniture in about a third of the tank every water change, and rotating every water change to a different section of tank.
Modern filter media such as ceramic Rings,and Purigen are far superior to an UGF ( IMO )

Yes, we were using various "bio balls" and some ceramics for the bio substrates in our wet/dry filters way back in the old days, and they were reputed to harbor a larger quantity of microbes than the (usually) smooth-surfaced aquarium gravel for any given volume.

As with your non-UGF substrates, we did just what you say, deeply vacuuming sections of the substrate with every water change, and if we couldn't get to all of it, we rotated and did the sections we didn't get one time when we did the next water change and vacuuming.

And, just as you describe, we always felt that while you wanted to get most of the visible gunk when vacuuming, you also wanted to leave something behind to keep the culture alive.

It sounds like this is all just about the same with or without a UGF except that with the UGF, if you don't use the floss, nasty stuff could get down below the filter frame and be impossible to get at unless you removed the gravel and frame entirely which really would be a big chore!!! And without the UGF, you can always clean right down to the glass. We just made it a habit to always clean down to the floss, and suck through the floss itself, too, to keep it from getting packed full of nasty gunk. As you move the vacuum tube from place to place, moving it up and down, it squeezes the floss and "wrings out" lots of the crud as water is being suctioned through the floss. It always seemed pretty effective.

It may be that using the floss is/was the step that keeps a UGF from being a problem. I'm not sure where we heard about using the floss, but it was standard practice among me and my friends back in those days.

 

My experience is minimal with this hobby, I only know most things from reading various "beginner" guides, so I can't help with all the technical reasons, but here is my opinion which may not even be true.

I think the main issue is more of a matter that UG filters don't work with plants, sand or dirted tanks. Personally, I think plants can replace(possibly surpass) the effects of a UG filter, while also having a much greater aesthetic appeal, and as well as possibly improving your fishes comfort.

If your confident with UG filters and are a considerate fish keeper and you keep good water quality, that's all that really matters.

 

FYI, the bio balls are used in wet/dry filters as an aerator and flow dispersant for the water being carried into the bio media section.
The ceramic rings are to hold your BB.
the reasons they work so well is as follows
1) they have an incredible surface area for their physical size
2) All the surfaces are textured to hold the BB
3) They are porous - so actually hold the BB inside the structure as well
4) because of the design, they do not clog, and supply sufficient water flow through the filter.
I use wet/dry trickle filters on all my tanks, and have done mostly for 30 years +, and my water is always pristine, and I never have issues with fish getting sick.
The floss thing for UGF filters came about years ago by people being slightly mis-guided in their thought over filters and what was required.
Floss was placed on top of the UGF membranes because people thought that the floss would strain all the large crud out of the water before going into the UGF
The problem was, that the floss degraded over time and went into the UGF membranes causing them to clog, thus defeating the whole object of the excercise.
We older people had all these things to deal with ( and more ) all those years ago, but somehow we still managed to keep healthy tanks full of fish, and all without the aid of the internet

 

FYI, the bio balls are used in wet/dry filters as an aerator and flow dispersant for the water being carried into the bio media section.

Interesting. What I remembered, and still see advertised today, are bioballs being sold as having very high surface area, supposedly to hold large amounts of bacteria. They talked about "microtexturing" the surfaces to increase the surface area back in the old days, and they were kind of "spiney" in shape so as to have a lot of "macro" surface as well. So while they were plastic, they were supposed to be pretty decent.

Here are some being sold today:



However, I also imagine that a highly textured ceramic material might be even better as far as its microscopic surface area, and so, be even better despite looking like they'd have less surface area.

The ceramic rings are to hold your BB.
the reasons they work so well is as follows
1) they have an incredible surface area for their physical size
2) All the surfaces are textured to hold the BB
3) They are porous - so actually hold the BB inside the structure as well
4) because of the design, they do not clog, and supply sufficient water flow through the filter.
I use wet/dry trickle filters on all my tanks, and have done mostly for 30 years +, and my water is always pristine, and I never have issues with fish getting sick.
The floss thing for UGF filters came about years ago by people being slightly mis-guided in their thought over filters and what was required.
Floss was placed on top of the UGF membranes because people thought that the floss would strain all the large crud out of the water before going into the UGF
The problem was, that the floss degraded over time and went into the UGF membranes causing them to clog, thus defeating the whole object of the excercise.
We older people had all these things to deal with ( and more ) all those years ago, but somehow we still managed to keep healthy tanks full of fish, and all without the aid of the internet

You can say that again! There were magazines, and such, but nothing like the instant access to the latest thinking like we have now!

I'm not sure what kind of floss degraded, but I pulled some out of a tank that had run for 20 years, then sat, still wet, for another year, and it was not degraded in any way I could tell. It certainly wasn't disintegrating, and there was nothing under the UGF gratings. The stuff we used was polyester. I still have a package of it left from all those years ago. I can get a picture of the label if that might help someone.

Perhaps people were using something like cotton floss or the like which would be literally eaten by the bacteria!

One thing that is good about polyester is that it stands up to UV radiation better than many other synthetics (like Nylon). We use it for guy ropes on antennas because it doesn't stretch like Nylon, and it has reasonable UV stability as well. I recently took down an antenna in my back yard that had been up for over 15 years, and the rope (polyester) was still decent. Not perfect, by any means, but very good for having been out in the sun and weather for that long. We have hot summers, cold winters, and a LOT of wind here, so I was very pleased with its long-lasting performance in that application, too.

I never had a polyester leisure suit, but I think those may have been what gave the stuff a bad reputation.

Again, it sounds like there may have been all kinds of reasons why people had failures with their UGFs over the years, and I luckily avoided those problems, thus leading me to have more respect for them than is popular these days.

 

The thing I don't like about UGF is how visible they are. I don't think there is anything wrong with using them. Clean your tank weekly as you should using a gravel vac, and you get all the gunk out from under the plates. Filters don't produce nitrate. The fish and uneaten food do. Properly stock your tank, don't over feed, do the routine maintenance on your tank and filter, and you should not have any problems. This is true for all types of filters.

Now a day they have power heads that you can reverse the flow on. Using them on a UGF in this way really helps to keep under the plates clean, and also helps in keeping the gravel clean too. If you do this, you should probably run another type of filter to help with the mechanical filtration in your tank.

I had never heard of putting material on top of the plates between them and the gravel. Interesting idea.

 

NOT having a UGF might be an incentive for me to try some planted plants and generally make the tank look better. If one doesn't need to be as careful about cleaning the substrate in a non-UGF tank, then that may lend itself to more elaborate decoration of the tank.

I've kept tanks not only to just keep the fish but to have nice to view objects in my home. I like the natural look, plants, bogwood, stones. I don't really like all the "fake" looking stuff in aquariums. I've never really had any problems with the substrate, I regularly vacuum where there is no plants and even where there is plants I vacuum some (I have a tank that has a "forest" in one section that I vacuum and it doesn't harm the plants). Also every couple months where it doesn't get vacuumed down to the bottom I have a small diameter dowel that I use to disturb the gravel down to the bottom.

 

Bio-balls by the very name is a misleading name for a product.
Yes, they have a open structure for un-resticted water flow, and a slightly textured surface, but the surface area in total of 1 bio ball would only amount to about 20% of 1 ceramic rings capacity to hold the BB. ( IMO )
Maybe somebody has an actual way / formula for calculating the BB in the 2 media ?

 

The thing I don't like about UGF is how visible they are. I don't think there is anything wrong with using them. Clean your tank weekly as you should using a gravel vac, and you get all the gunk out from under the plates. Filters don't produce nitrate. The fish and uneaten food do. Properly stock your tank, don't over feed, do the routine maintenance on your tank and filter, and you should not have any problems. This is true for all types of filters.

Now a day they have power heads that you can reverse the flow on. Using them on a UGF in this way really helps to keep under the plates clean, and also helps in keeping the gravel clean too. If you do this, you should probably run another type of filter to help with the mechanical filtration in your tank.

I had never heard of putting material on top of the plates between them and the gravel. Interesting idea.

I do think putting the floss over the frames, and the gravel on top was something a friend of mine found out about or figured out on his own way back in the '70s or something. It seemed like a good idea, and we had great luck doing it. It increases the bio-surface and stops particles from being able to get down through the slots. The slots in a typical UGF frame are fairly wide. It always seemed like small pieces of gravel as well as detritus would be able to easily get through and be under the frames, so we wanted to stop that.

But the floss adds to the height of the whole UGF, and makes things look even worse!

When you can see the floss through the side of the tank, it's irregular in thickness and just kind of unsightly. What always saved me from actually seeing it was that I usually get a layer of algae growing on the glass that hides it to some extent. I guess you could paint a stripe around the bottom of the tank to hide everything up to wherever you want to start seeing the gravel or something. But the whole thing makes the substrate thicker, which uses up tank space, if nothing else.

Yeah, you'd definitely want some sort of auxiliary mechanical filter if you were running a reverse-flow UGF, for sure. We always ran at least a HOB along with UGFs anyhow, and usually something even fancier than that. The UGFs were just part of the total system. Again, we always saw them as mainly an additional biological filter area to help keep things stable. Running the UGF in reverse might really be the way for me to go if I decide to put one into this "new" tank at all.

The little 5 gallon tank I currently have our "filter refugees" in has a UGF and a layer of floss. You can't see it in the photo I posted because the algae hides it all. It might as well just be a very deep layer of gravel for all you can really see. That, and the lighting for that photo comes almost entirely from the tiny LED that came with that tank "kit".

I've kept tanks not only to just keep the fish but to have nice to view objects in my home. I like the natural look, plants, bogwood, stones. I don't really like all the "fake" looking stuff in aquariums. I've never really had any problems with the substrate, I regularly vacuum where there is no plants and even where there is plants I vacuum some (I have a tank that has a "forest" in one section that I vacuum and it doesn't harm the plants). Also every couple months where it doesn't get vacuumed down to the bottom I have a small diameter dowel that I use to disturb the gravel down to the bottom.

So I take it you don't have one of those air-powered treasure chests with the pirate skeleton in any of your tanks!

I like the idea of just probing around in the areas where you can't vacuum the way you'd like. That'd keep things from getting nasty but also be pretty friendly to the plant roots, etc.

I think it'd be fun to have some nice natural-looking planted tanks. If I ever get back into this seriously at home, I should try something planted nicely. I've never done that before, but it really could be something that's relaxing and pleasant to look at.

I like the idea of giving the fish good places to hide, but it would be nice to try doing that with plants and natural objects only. The only things I usually put in my tanks in the past were some big pieces of petrified wood that I have. This little one here has a number of un-natural decorations provided by another person who works here and who had them at home. She felt that the fish needed some hiding places, and she's right. Particularly with so many in such a tiny tank, I do think it makes them more comfortable.

I have to say that they seem pretty happy in there. They're real beggars. They just go nuts when you stand up or move around in the room. They're pretty well conditioned! But I'd like to see how they do in a nice, big tank.

Since these are all native fish whose normal habitat is a nearby river, it might be nice to try to go with plants and "decor" that mimic what might be normal in the river and nearby ponds, etc. But I'm not sure what that might be with regard to plants. I don't think I can fit cattails in the tank!

Bio-balls by the very name is a misleading name for a product.
Yes, they have a open structure for un-resticted water flow, and a slightly textured surface, but the surface area in total of 1 bio ball would only amount to about 20% of 1 ceramic rings capacity to hold the BB. ( IMO )
Maybe somebody has an actual way / formula for calculating the BB in the 2 media ?

I think calculating the surface area would be very difficult for the ceramic because the shape of the surface would be extremely complex. It might be one of those things where you could determine it experimentally, but even that might be a hard experiment to design. Nonetheless, I figure the ceramic must have a very large surface area, indeed!

For some reason, what comes to mind is a geometric object called The Menger Sponge. Theoretically, the surface can approach infinity. Kind of like what you get when you activate carbon. The surface area is phenomenal.




That is from this page:



I don't think you could ever get that kind of microscopic surface area with any kind of plastic. I think the microtexturing would help enormously, but still, if the ceramic is anything like what you get with activated carbon, it's got to be fantastic.

I think the bioballs are pretty good, but I'll bet the ceramics are even better as long as they don't get covered with a layer of slime that chokes off what's down inside the tiny features of the surface, or the small features get impacted with something. That might be an advantage to the bioballs. While they won't have as much area to begin with, it probably stays pretty constant.

Still, I'll bet you could boil the ceramic rings or treat them chemically (maybe hydrogen peroxide or the like) and restore their surface area even if they did degrade over time.

You could probably design an experiment to see how much ammonia a bed of each of them could convert, and how fast, to come up with an idea of how much better the ceramic pieces are. It may be that the manufacturers have already done that, too.

 

The main problem with UG filters today is that people try to use that as the only form of filtration in their tank. If/when this happens, anaerobic bacterial pockets are common (I did it on a betta tank a few years back and eww, nasty smell lol).

BB will grow to the bioload of your tank, wherever it happens to be housed. Dual filtration (ie canister and ugf) is generally not necessary. Personally, for the 55 gallon I'm setting up for my boyfriend, we're using a DIY substrate consisting of miracle gro, pea gravel, and topsoil from his yard. It'll have lots of live plants and a 265gph canister filter. (if we weren't using live plants, I'd insist on more filtration personally, but since I'm big on low maintenance tanks, live plants it is lol).

Anyway my two cents: If you want to use a UGF and a second filter, go ahead. You obviously know how to make this work for you and you're aware of the risks of using the UGF. Oddly enough, it never occurred to me to put filter floss over the UGF panel... now I wish I had ordered a different filter for my pea puffer tank lol. You just gave me an awesome idea ;p

 

So I take it you don't have one of those air-powered treasure chests with the pirate skeleton in any of your tanks!

Correct to the disappointment of my now 15 year old daughter. Still, in the past month she has complained when we were in a fishstore that we don't ever have any of those "cool" type of decorations in our tanks.

 

After Ceramic rings are cleaned and put into a filter, there really is no need at all to disturb them for any reason.
I have had rings in tanks and never cleaned / washed, or disturbed them for more than 10 years, and they never caused a problem.
In fact, ( rightly or wrongly ) I believe they actually get better with age.

 

The main problem with UG filters today is that people try to use that as the only form of filtration in their tank. If/when this happens, anaerobic bacterial pockets are common (I did it on a betta tank a few years back and eww, nasty smell lol).

BB will grow to the bioload of your tank, wherever it happens to be housed. Dual filtration (ie canister and ugf) is generally not necessary. Personally, for the 55 gallon I'm setting up for my boyfriend, we're using a DIY substrate consisting of miracle gro, pea gravel, and topsoil from his yard. It'll have lots of live plants and a 265gph canister filter. (if we weren't using live plants, I'd insist on more filtration personally, but since I'm big on low maintenance tanks, live plants it is lol).

Anyway my two cents: If you want to use a UGF and a second filter, go ahead. You obviously know how to make this work for you and you're aware of the risks of using the UGF. Oddly enough, it never occurred to me to put filter floss over the UGF panel... now I wish I had ordered a different filter for my pea puffer tank lol. You just gave me an awesome idea ;p

My recollection was that putting the floss over the filter frames was something my friend or I came up with on our own because we didn't like stuff falling down through the fairly large openings in the filter frames. I'm not sure I've seen it done anywhere else. But it also may have come from somewhere else and we picked up on it. Both of us did a lot of experimental things and built our own equipment.

We'd make 500 mile round trip drives down to Denver to go to Sherman Tank Company to buy aquariums and fish. I still have the gadget I built to keep them at a constant temperature in the van for those rides back here.

He was the first person I ever saw build his own IBM PC clone from parts, wrote his own custom BIOS for it, and wrote an entire bulletin board system (BBS) in DOS BATCH!!! (Thousands of lines of batch code! But it worked great).

This all dates us, of course. He died way too young. RIP, Ray!

Correct to the disappointment of my now 15 year old daughter. Still, in the past month she has complained when we were in a fishstore that we don't ever have any of those "cool" type of decorations in our tanks.

Hah! You could always set up a special tank just for retro-kitch stereotypical aquarium decorations! Put a lava lamp next to it, a Tensor lamp above for lighting, and a couple of bean bag chairs in front of it for viewing.

After Ceramic rings are cleaned and put into a filter, there really is no need at all to disturb them for any reason.
I have had rings in tanks and never cleaned / washed, or disturbed them for more than 10 years, and they never caused a problem.
In fact, ( rightly or wrongly ) I believe they actually get better with age.

That's really what I'd hope for. Ideally, your bacteria colony should just get better with age.

I know they're finding out that the human body has more bacteria cells in it than human cells, and the bacteria we harbor does a lot for us. And treatment with antibiotics wipes out entire species of bacteria in us, causing their extinction (within us), and that leads to all kinds of problems. So they're even taking cultures of our internal bacteria before surgery and such, and then re-introducing it into our gut after we're done with the antibiotics to get the colonies reestablished.

Not to be gross, but they have had good success with "fecal transplants" for people suffering from having their bacteria wiped out by antibiotic treatments. Here's one article about it:



No reason to assume our tanks are any different. Ideally, we'd have a good colony of bacteria that's well differentiated and appropriate for our fish and anything else living in the tank.

This all makes me wonder if us keeping our UGFs set up and running for ten, or fifiteen years, and using cultures of those old aquariums' gravel to start our new ones wasn't a factor in our success. We'd seed new tanks with a good batch of gravel out of an established tank when we set a new one up. That, and using some hardy fish to start out probably gave us a real head start on cycling the tank and getting things up and running fast.

In effect, digging out some gravel that had been in an established tank, and seeding the new tank with it IS a "fecal transplant"!

In the little tank at the water plant, the water for water changes is simply raw water pumped into the plant from the presedimentation pond (where the fish came from to begin with). So that pond water is preconditioned, and carries all of the microorganisms that the fish were used to when they got sucked into the plant from the pond to begin with.

It may be that doing that initially, too, seeded the UGF and little power filter with exactly what these fish need and were used to. I didn't even cycle this tank when setting it up. I put in the UGF, the little power filter the tank "kit" came with, and filled it with the raw pond water. It ran for only a few hours, which totally cleared the water visually, and then we put the fish in. I think the secret to the success was just that we started with that raw pond water.

It all makes me wonder if some of the trouble people have starting a new tank might simply be that the new fish they buy are "too clean", and don't have their own healthy gut bacteria, and the water they start out with is also "too clean".

Along with fish food to start a tank cycling, it would be good to have some "live detritus" from wherever those fish naturally live and thrive, just to get the tank's "gut" established well to start. In this case,we had that "on tap" coming into the plant.

 

I think plants are the main reason they went out of favour but as a lot of plants do not need to be planted in the substrate I do not see this as a major issue if you still want plants in there. From the sounds of it you know your undergravel filters and you know the work involved and how to get the best from them. They may not be the filter of choice these days but if it works for you I say go for it, you may be the pioneer of an undergravel filter comeback. Big thumps up.

 

I also believe that many years ago, when fish keeping was in its infancy, much of the knowledge we gained was through trial and error.
Things were not as steralized as they are now, and that includes the way in which we treated the water.
I can remember having to bubble water for days to remove Chlorine, before any products were even widely available to de-clorinate the water.
Surely the immune systems of the fish had to be stronger - or were they ?
it could just be that we did not use the chems and stuff that are used in abundance today by many.
Today, everything that is needed ( and more ) is out there for the new fish keeper to be an overnight success
Knowledge has been transmitted over the years by specialist magazines such as " Practical Fish keeping " in the UK, and I am sure the US, and other countries had their publications for the dedicated Aquarists.
Without this initial knowledge being passed down, there would not be the advances within the hobby that there are today

 

Their immune systems did use to be stronger, as aquarium fish were not as inbred as they are today :/ Kind of a bummer, really.

 

Maybe you are right Junebug,
All I know, is that fish seemed to stronger, and the diseases that are so prevelant today such a Ich really did not even exsist

 

Yeah I know. 20ish years ago when I started in fishkeeping, my fish never got sick. Ever. Now it seems like if I'm not insanely careful, I'm forever battling some disease or other.

 

I can remember reading, near the end of the time when I had tanks before (15-20 years ago) that they were just starting to caution people about treating fish tanks with antibiotics.

I'm sure it's old news now, but back then, it seemed like kind of a shocking revelation.

They made the point that fish tank antibiotics are expensive, and fish tanks have a lot of mass to be treated. So people tend to skimp, and not treat long enough, or not with enough of the antibiotic. Further, people would just dump the water from their tanks down the drain.

Undertreating with antibiotics selects for the antibiotic-resistant mutants in the mix, so you end up breeding antibiotic-resistant strains of various bacteria. Then you dump that down the drain, and it goes into the municipal wastewater system, and may reach the nearest river depending on how things work out.

So they started to say that you should put bleach into your waste fish tank water, stir it up, and let it sit for quite a while (to get good contact time) before putting any of it down the drain, and you should be especially diligent about this if you're treating your fish for anything.

This was also about the time they were figuring out that raising various livestock using antibiotics to speed their growth was an extremely dangerous practice. It still goes on today, and is partly responsible for some of the "super-bugs" we have to face now.

Anyhow, one thing we have going for us with this particular fish project is that the fish are either directly from the river, or are fairly-recent descendents of the river fish here. The presedimentation pond gives lots of things a good place to grow and breed.

While it's great to have captive-bred fish to reduce the demand from the native habitats, I suppose it would also be good to have the breeding stock supplemented with wild-caught fish, at least from time to time, too, to keep the genetics more varied.

What probably ought to happen is that people should set up fish breeding facilities near where the fish live naturally. Then they could catch a few from time to time, to freshen the breeding stock, but breed large quantities of fish in those facilities to sell to the market. If someone set something like that up in the countries from which the fish come, they could employ local people breeding them rather than going out and taking them from the wild. It seems like it'd be more sustainable, and maybe make more money for the locals than what they often do now.

That's off topic, but it seems appropriate.

Meanwhile, I also do think that you lose something when you treat a fish tank with antibiotics. You really can't take a sample of its filter before treating and expect to use that to re-establish the colonies because you'd also re-infect the tank. But you can take filter media from another of your tanks and put it into a tank that you've had to treat with antibiotics once you're sure all of the antibiotics have been completely cleared from it.

But that means you need to have more than one tank. Hmm. Another excuse to set up multiple tanks! Either that, or you need to know some other people nearby with whom you can share detritus when necessary.

I think plants are the main reason they went out of favour but as a lot of plants do not need to be planted in the substrate I do not see this as a major issue if you still want plants in there. From the sounds of it you know your undergravel filters and you know the work involved and how to get the best from them. They may not be the filter of choice these days but if it works for you I say go for it, you may be the pioneer of an undergravel filter comeback. Big thumps up.

I might put one into this tank when I set it up. I'm torn, though, because it does seem like you have more options with plants, etc., if you don't use the UGF! But, as you point out, the plants don't have to be planted down into the UGF's gravel. You can use "potted plants" or floating types. I always liked the floating ones that I accidentally got in with some fish one time. They flourished in my 55 back then, and I had to take out about half of them every week to keep it to a reasonable amount. A lot of people ended up with some of those.

I also believe that many years ago, when fish keeping was in its infancy, much of the knowledge we gained was through trial and error.
Things were not as steralized as they are now, and that includes the way in which we treated the water.
I can remember having to bubble water for days to remove Chlorine, before any products were even widely available to de-clorinate the water.
Surely the immune systems of the fish had to be stronger - or were they ?
it could just be that we did not use the chems and stuff that are used in abundance today by many.
Today, everything that is needed ( and more ) is out there for the new fish keeper to be an overnight success
Knowledge has been transmitted over the years by specialist magazines such as " Practical Fish keeping " in the UK, and I am sure the US, and other countries had their publications for the dedicated Aquarists.
Without this initial knowledge being passed down, there would not be the advances within the hobby that there are today

There could have been less of the really harmful bacteria out there years ago. And the fish may have been hardier, too.

We used to bubble the water to get rid of the chlorine, too. Now a lot of cities use chloramines to treat their water because it provides a longer-lasting disinfectant residual for the distribution system.

The regional water plant that happens to serve my home uses Ozone as their primary disinfectant (to reduce the amount of dangerous disinfection byproducts that are produced) and then treats with chloramine to provide the disinfectant residual through the distribution system. So I now have to deal with chloramines at home, and they will not come out by just bubbling the water or letting it sit. You do have to use something to treat it.

The plant where I work serves a smaller community and is not attached to the regional system that serves my house. We use plain old chlorine gas to provide the disinfection and the disinfectant residual in the system. So people on this system can just let a bucket of water sit for 24 hours, and the chlorine will off gas and it'll be fine.

Here at the plant, I just use the raw water before it's been treated in any way for our fish, so that's even better yet!

It was the magazines that were our primary resource for the latest thinking in aquarium-keeping back then. That, and word of mouth. But mostly books and magazines. The internet is an amazing resource we have these days! I don't have to even go to a library or magazine store.

 

I know this question has been answered many times already but... I used to use UGF's on all my tanks but when I changed over to wet-dry trickle filters (for fun, like a previous poster did) I decided to get rid of the UGF's. When I removed the filter I was shocked to see how muchdetritus was there. I just got back into it this year and recently switched to a sand substrate and I'm really happy with what I see during water changes. The figure that since the UGF is supposed to be a bio-filter, why not use a more efficient bio-filter?

If you like tinkering, try a DIY wet-dry. You can put a massive pump on it that will eliminate the need for any other type of filter. I don't have a massive pump but wouldn't mind upgrading to something that could do 800-1000 gph. Well maybe.

I've been looking at the SunSuns on EBAY, etc. Those look like a lot of filter for a very good price! And, as I've done in the past, even if I go with an UGF, I'd have an external filter, for sure. Perhaps that's another reason I've always had good luck with UGFs. I've always had at least one other filter in place. Either way, a fairly large one of those SunSuns seems like a great way to go.

It sounds like the issues with UGFs come from them not being cleaned thoroughly. And I can see where, in a tank with fancy decor or a planted tank, it'd be a pain (or impossible) to get to every bit of the filter. I guess another reason I've had good luck has been that I've never had planted plants (floaters and some pots, yes, but not ones planted in the gravel). So I've always just moved the rocks and other decorations as I siphon/vacuum the whole substrate/UGF. It really doesn't take much time, and in some ways is less of a mess than dealing with the sump filters and other external filters I've used in the past.

But then again, I enjoy tinkering with things, so even dealing with a cannister or sump type filter is somewhat enjoyable for me. Isn't part of the fun of this hobby the tinkering with all of the equipment? Maybe I'm strange!

But you say that even if you keep a UGF clean, the nitrate will inevitably creep up. That's something I don't understand. If you're maintaining the UGF at a constant level of cleanliness, how can things change over time? This is something I've never seen in any of mine, but I suspect it happens enough that this is what's made UGFs undesirable.

I can't help but feel that when people have had problems with UGFs, they really haven't been keeping them clean. It would be the same if you didn't keep an external filter clean, right? It's just that an external filter may be easier to clean in many (most?) cases. And that's good enough reason to avoid UGFs for most people.

I can envision a UGF, without the floss, where debris falls down through the gravel and lands below the frames where it can't be reached. And I can envision UGFs where people don't vacuum the gravel (and floss if they use it) everywhere. They miss places under decorations or near plants. So I can imagine UGFs that don't get thoroughly cleaned, and they turn into a real nasty mess.

I guess with a lot of other filters, you can have the mechanical filtration ahead of everything else, so you never have a lot of rotting detritus directly in contact with the bio-filter surfaces. So you can clean out the mechanical filter and not kill off your bio filter or even have to clean the bio filter material. With a UGF, the mechanical filtration is combined with the bio-filtration, and that might be the real issue in many ways.

I'm going to have to consider this all carefully.

I don't have any problem getting or building and using whatever kind of external filter(s) seem the best. And I don't have any reason to use an UGF if there's no downside to NOT using one. It's just that I've had such great luck with them in the past that they seem like a trusted old friend! A stabilizing influence on the tank that has always served me well.


I'm still trying to get my head around what happens in the substrate of a non-UGF tank, though.

If you clean it thoroughly, and regularly, like I have with my UGF tanks' gravel, I can see how it'd stay clean. But if you avoid areas with decorations, or don't get down to the bottom of the substrate, doesn't it develop areas with detritus rotting away, and maybe end up being even worse because, with no water flow, it can breed colonies of anaerobic bacteria?

Or do you use very fine sand so that detritus cannot penetrate down into the substrate, and then whatever falls to the bottom is easily vacuumed up off of the surface, or actually swept up by the currents from your other filter(s), more like just having a bare glass bottom, really.

Apparently people are setting up lots of tanks without UGFs, and they're not having problems, so my concerns must be unfounded. But it just seems like an undisturbed substrate would end up creating that petroleum and H2S kind of stuff that one finds just below the surface in a stagnant pond. Then again, maybe that doesn't really matter.



NOT having a UGF might be an incentive for me to try some planted plants and generally make the tank look better. If one doesn't need to be as careful about cleaning the substrate in a non-UGF tank, then that may lend itself to more elaborate decoration of the tank.

 

The DIY wet-dry sump filter that I had with this same 55 Gallon tank that I'm planning to use here now used a nice magnetically coupled pump that I got from a surplus place way back then. It moved so much water that I had to throttle it back at the outlet with a ball valve to keep the flow rate reasonable. It was fun building the whole thing from scratch and the local hardware stores.

This was used in conjunction with the UGF, I also made a home-brew protein skimmer using some plexiglass tubing about 2" in diameter and various other bits and fittings. That seemed to collect some brown or yellowish goo, so I figure it was doing some good, too. It may have been incredible overkill, but, again, I enjoy tinkering with it all, so it was an excuse to "play in the water" even more.

It appears that I'm not alone in my experience with (and trust in) undergravel filters.

I will say that I ordered and have received a UGF for the tank, and I also bought a bag of polyester batting so I can implement my usual construction of the UGF system using a layer of polyester directly on top of the UGF "plates" with the gravel placed on top of that.

I still need to get some powerheads (if I can't find or don't like the condition of my old ones), and I'll be looking at options for an additional filter. I always like having some sort of additional filter along with the UGF. I have some old HOBs from "the old days" or I could rebuild my old sump system. But some of those new, inexpensive canisters are looking pretty attractive, too!

It's kind of fun deciding how to set things up.

 

jsigmo,

I'm like you, I started in the hobby about 30 years ago when UGF were all the rage. I worked my way through college in a pet store. The owner was not a fan of UGF but I was pretty taken in by the theory (being a microbiology major). He suggested that I use a reverse flow UGF as they send more oxygenated and filtered water under the gravel bed and push the water up and out. I've had that same filter in my tank for the last 30 years and it's done well. I have a 22 year old clown loach that will attest to that.

That's not my only filter though, I also have a Marineland Penguin 350 hanging on the back so between those two the 30 gallon tank has more than enough filtration. I have my undergravel filter plates taking up about the right two thirds of the tank and have some rooted plants in the other one third, nothing but Java Moss on the side with the filter plates. I do know from vacuuming out the bottom that the third without the plates would have a lot more 'dirt' in the water than the water coming from the gravel that was over the filter plates, this tells me the UGF is certainly doing something.

I do like the fact that having two filters makes tank cleaning safer. Do your water changes one week, the next week change the filter media in the Penguin, and the following week clean the foam filter on the power head on the reverse flow UGF. Next month, same process. You never remove too much biological filtration at once. Of course, having two of any filter with biological filtrations servers this purpose, not just an UGF.

I just feel (and it's just a feeling reinforced with my observations when vacuuming) that the reverse flow UGF gives the substrate a bit more umph when it comes to biological filtration than it would have without it.

 

I really like the idea of the reverse flow for the UGF. It seems like it would give you the great bio-surface of the UGF yet help to help keep things from getting choked off by smaller particles working their way lower into the media. I'd still use the layer of floss over the UGF plates, though, because that adds more surface and stops small particles of the substrate from being able to fall below the plates.

What kind of power heads do you use to achieve the reverse flow down into the "up tubes" of the UGF panels? You'd want (as you mention) some kind of sponge or other "pre filter" to stop the debris, of course.

Another idea might be to plumb the outlet of a canister filter into the "up tube" fittings of the UGF plate to get that flow without any additional pumps/powerheads.

But then again, one of the advantages of having the UGF system be separate and independent from the other filter systems is the redundancy to make things more "fail safe", and to provide more constancy while you're doing maintenance on any one of the filter systems.

So I'll be looking for some reverse-flow powerheads that accommodate pre-filters on their inlets.

 

Do you have recent set-uppictures of this 55gal by now? (I'd be interested in seeing it)

Also after reading through this whole post if you had that much plant growth I would say the UGF did contribute to excessive nitrates (based on research only, not personal experience)

I am not a fan nor a user of them myself

 

Do you have recent set-uppictures of this 55gal by now? (I'd be interested in seeing it)

Also after reading through this whole post if you had that much plant growth I would say the UGF did contribute to excessive nitrates (based on research only, not personal experience)

I am not a fan nor a user of them myself

Hi.

I would still love to find more of whatever that plant was. It grew easily, floated, and took no real maintenance other than discarding part of it every once in a while as it got too large. I've looked on line and haven't seen anything that looks just like it. It was probably some hated invasive species that's illegal to sell or own or something! But man, it was great!


I did a little thread about the setup of the tank here:



It shows how the UGF went together and the way I put the floss on top of the UGF plates, and then finally, the gravel over that.

Since setting that tank up and letting the nitrogen cycle become established using the crayfish, we did move the minnows over to that tank. But the crayfish ate all but two of them. However, during that time, we all become pretty attached to the crayfish. So we've decided to set up another 55 so we can have a crayfish tank and a fish-only tank.

I do have a lot of newer photos of the crayfish and that tank. I'll probably post them to the "build" thread, or maybe start a new one in the crayfish area of this forum.


Right now, my sense is that the lights in that tank are not as bright as I'd like. I'd like to see more green algae, personally, and perhaps make it more friendly for plants. As it is, we have quite a bit of brown diatom growth, intermixed with some green algae.

I'm also just still running the normal "up tubes" with their air stones to provide the traditional flow for an ungergravel filter. I still like the idea of a reverse flow setup, but I haven't taken the time to try to find the required power heads and pre-filter sponges. The biofiltration is working very well, with the ammonia and nitrite always reading zero despite the extremely heavy over-feeding and large chunks of rotting dead fish, etc., in the tank.

We've been trying to find things the crayfish will like. The three things we've found that they really go nuts for are nightcrawlers, frozen dead fish, and freeze dried tubifex worms. Of course, they also obviously love live minnows, but the two that remain have been wily enough to avoid capture, and we're all rooting for them!

All of these things tend to be fairly messy, so there's always a good load of rotting food that got away from them as well as their waste (they really eat a lot!). And it doesn't help that certain of us here have been feeding them pieces of hamburgers, french fries, etc., too!

I keep reading about how UGFs can become "nitrate factories". That has puzzled me because the whole idea of any biological filter is to establish a large enough colony of BB that it can convert all of the free ammonia from fish waste and rotting food into, ultimately, nitrate. So a "nitrate factory" is the GOAL for any tank.

What I think people must be referring to is just that if you don't properly clean your tank and filter, you end up with a lot of rotting material, and the end result (assuming you have a good-enough "nitrate factory") is, of course, nitrate!

If we used only a canister or HOB or whatever, and we didn't clean the detritus from it periodically (and clean the tank, too), we'd end up with nitrate levels rising faster than we'd like simply because of the high amount of waste in the system.

What I think it really comes down to is that people prefer cleaning out other types of filters over cleaning the gravel in their UGF. I can see that.

But it seems like you'd still need to vacuum your tank's substrate to some degree to keep waste from building up there regardless of whether or not you're using it as part of the filter.


I deep vacuum the gravel when I do water changes, pressing the gravel vac tube down to the floss so water gets sucked up through the gravel and the floss, backwashing it all. I think we overfeed the crayfish here, but it's just really fun to watch. And one in particular is a heck of a beggar! If you approach the tank, he comes running up and stands up against the glass, waving his arms around. And they can be somewhat sloppy eaters, so a lot of large debris needs to be sucked out of the tank every time. I've been pretty lazy about the water changes, only doing one every couple of weeks, but when I do, I try to be very thorough with the vacuuming, and I end up changing about 2/3rds of the water in order to really get the vacuuming done well.

I'm using a home-made gravel-vac that's probably larger than most store-bought units. The vac tube is a piece of 2 inch O.D. plexiglass pipe, and I use a water-bed drainer (faucet aspirator) to get the suction, and garden hose for most of the run. I have a relief hole in an elbow at the top of the vac-tube that I put my finger over to get suction, and can release quickly to stop the suction. That way, I can let the gravel fall back down when I feel an area has been thoroughly backwashed. I put a piece of plastic screen at the top of the tube to stop gravel and pieces of debris large enough to choke the aspirator from getting out into the tube and garden hose. But that means that when that screen gets loaded with debris, I have to slowly let the vacuum off, and then put my hand over the bottom of the vac tube to catch the junk, and then dump that into a bucket. I need to devise a better way to trap the large debris (french fries, hamburger chunks, etc.) yet not have it try to fall back into the tank every time I let off on the suction.

So I understand the hassle of thoroughly cleaning the UGF's gravel. But I still can't help thinking that one's gravel would need pretty much the same cleaning regardless. The detritus will all fall onto and into the gravel, and the only way to get rid of it is with a gravel vac. So what I think is important is to have an easy way to vacuum gravel so you don't allow it to fill up with rotting debris.

But I'll probably find out soon enough because we want to set up another tank specifically for the crayfish, and I think we'll use fine sand for its bottom. And that means we will not have a UGF for that tank.

I'm still looking at the Sun Sun brand as a good cheap way to get a canister filter. I've also toyed with just building my own. But a large sun sun seems like a good way to get started and figure out what I like and don't like about them as a starting point either way.

 

I got a 55 and I have Africans in mine and I have two hobf and one 300 watt heater and a booble maker for a 60 gal. And I love it if you would like picture I got some

 

I like the idea of having multiple filters like you have. That's also the case in our 55 that has the undergravel filter (UGF) in it.

It's got the UGF as well as the two filters that came with the aquarium kit. They hang off the back, but hang on the inside of the aquarium. So I'm not sure they qualify as HOBs. Maybe they're a HIB (hang in back).

I always like to see pictures!

Were you thinking of setting up an undergravel filter in your tank or in a new tank? I think they're underrated.

 

I had one in my glofish tank and it is on

In the it's a sturgable filter I think

I was wrong it a in tank filter

that is one in the corner and this is the other

Wrong picture on bottom lol