Filtration

[Chris w]

hi all i am quite an experianced fish keeper however some six months a go i lost the fish in my tank due to secondry bacteria infection which could not be treated.

i am about to start the whole process again with a clean sterile tank

my set yp is a 3 foot tank with an external fluval 405 filter which is more than adequate.

i have used sand and also gravel in the past and both have there draw backs regarding a fish medium

what iam thinking of this time is to incorperate a undergravel filter this tim ans use the external filter to pull the water and waste through the ugf.

do any of you know if this is possible and if so how do i go about this.

the external keeps brilliant water quality i know but i want go back togravel and avoid having all the fish waste build up with in this.

my train of thought is that the gravel should be a lot cleanr this way .

do any of you have ant thoughts on this thanks.

chris w

 

[AdAndrews]

sounds good to me, this is what i would do if i had a new bigger tank, as you said the filter keeps the water clean, so the under gravel wil suck under the waste, have a medium sized substrate not too fine. oh and if you have live plants then they wont do as well due to circulation around their roots. Just put the under gravel filter in normally and then run it with the external, as the media in the external i would have about 80% mechanical eg, sponges, and fine filter floss gets my water crystal clear and 20% bio like the ceramic media bacteria bits. As the undergravel has a huge surface area this will account for more than enough. What fish are you planning to keep?

 

[Chris w]

sounds good to me, this is what i would do if i had a new bigger tank, as you said the filter keeps the water clean, so the under gravel wil suck under the waste, have a medium sized substrate not too fine. oh and if you have live plants then they wont do as well due to circulation around their roots. Just put the under gravel filter in normally and then run it with the external, as the media in the external i would have about 80% mechanical eg, sponges, and fine filter floss gets my water crystal clear and 20% bio like the ceramic media bacteria bits. As the undergravel has a huge surface area this will account for more than enough. What fish are you planning to keep?

planing on just keeping a community tank this time as last time i lost a breading pair of parrot cichilids i was gutted
as i had had them a number of years i think this is why it has taken me so long to strat back up.
as i have had no heart to keep fish since the loss.

iam not going to specialise but wouldnt mind trying breeding a few gouramis

 

[Truck]

theres no need for a UGF, if crap gets stuck on the bottom then your flow isnt very good and you may benefit from a power head, a koralia 1 would be good

 

[AdAndrews]

shame about the cichlids. have you thought about rams, it would look nice with a pair, some black neon tetras and some khuli loaches. how many litres/ gallons is your tank

 

[Chris w]

shame about the cichlids. have you thought about rams, it would look nice with a pair, some black neon tetras and some khuli loaches. how many litres/ gallons is your tank

156 liters and no ive never thought of rams may look at these but i want plenty of fish for the size of the tank allowed as apposed to just a pair

and to answer the previous poster i always have good flow with the fluval 405 external filter as i regually clean the filte out at least every 5 to 6 weeks as i find it does not need any more frequent maintinence

the idea of the ugf is to stop the build up of fish waste.

 

[AdAndrews]

i see what your saying and it makes sence, go for it!- have you thought about malawi cichlids or discus?- both are stunning

 

[Truck]

its way to small for malawis and discus

 

[AdAndrews]

not really- im just giving him ideas trucky, dont be silly again and ruin everything like last time

 

[Truck]

malawis need a big open tank that is long, say 4 foot plus, and discus ideally need about 200 litres.

im not ruining things im stating the obvious

 

[Tolak]

The ugf will not stop the buildup of fish waste, but it will effectively hide it, giving the impression of no buildup. Ugf's are prone to channeling, while the canister will pull plenty of water through the gravel at first, after about 6 months there will be dead areas, as the water flow follows the path of least resistance.

This will lead to the underside of the ugf plates looking like a mud puddle. You won't see this until you do a teardown, something that is needed when running ugf, at the very least yearly. It doesn't matter if you run a powerhead, canister, or air to run the ugf, this is going to happen.

I find it easier to do maintenance on a canister than tearing down a tank with ugf. Vaccing the gravel is needed in either situation, though with vaccing you can't pull the debris from beneath the ugf plates. Without those plates you can vac down to the tank bottom.

 

[three-fingers]

If it's a community tank you want, I would go with heavily planting it with a lot of different variety of easy plants to suit whatever lighting you have.

And then add Malaysian trumpet snails to turn over the substrate (preferably sand for some plants).

This way, most of the substrate is covered with plants, which hides any waste temporarily in view, and the waste is soon just broken down by the snails (which act like earthworms) and bacteria to feed the plants.

I've had my bigger planted tank set up for a year and a half and have never once cleaned the substrate.

I really doubt I would go back to using a UGF again, even using them with powerheads I found build up of waste over a couple of years is tremendous, and most plants don't take too kindly to them so cant use the waste.