dangers of unused under gravel filters???

[Magnum Man26 140]

I had to remove a power head on an under gravel filter tube, when I put the heart leaved hoyas in a hang on pot, in a tank… that was a month ago, and I just added an air stone to that lift tube today, I noticed quite a bit of junk coming out of the lift tube… I wonder how many of us “old guys” have unused under gravel filter plates under our gravel yet??? I would suspect that isn’t good… I did not notice any unusual behavior in the fish, but this one ( and time got away from me ) was only about a month with no circulation… thoughts on that dead zone under there for extended time periods…

 

[GaryE25 140]

To me, just a dead zone like you'd have under any gravel. You can get a siphon into it though.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford25 140]

I did this many years ago. I was running an UG filter in a 58 gallon cichlid tank. Eventually I wanted to switch to a canister filter. After letting the bacterial colony in the canister filter mature, I simply abandoned the UG. Pulled the lift tubes out and that was it. I may have capped where the lift tune attached but I'm not 100% sure. I didn't have any issues with abandoning the UG.