Under Substrate Filteration

[garyspence84]

I am just about to completely change my gravel for sand and I'm wondering if there's any way of having an under sand filter?

I know connecting to a power head would damage the powerhead as the fine sand would just get sucked into it and muck it up. Bit is there a way of doing it in reverse? As in, instead of the water being pulled THROUGH the substrate (sand in my case), it is pushed back into the floor? By using an additional filter or something?

I havent done any of this yet, its just a thought.

 

[techen]

Undergravel filters aren't wonderful to start with and no I don't believe you get anything like that. I'd just use a normal filter and a gravel vac to clean sand

 

[DrRob]

I'd never considered it, but would wonder if a reverse flow system would create issues with lifting the sand. If you get enough flow to not be anaerobic you'd end up with a huge fluidised sand bed filter, with fish living in it.

 

[Tuxyu3]

Not something I would want to try personally but it sounds interesting. Any particular reason you want something like that?

 

[garyspence84]

I've always liked the idea of undergravel filters but have always kept plants so I couldn't but not keeping live plants. Was just a thought. Cheers folks

 

[Mikey1]

undergravel filters are IMO the best filters out there....providing you are using GRAVEL and you have no live plants....easy maintainance, and they basically last forever....

i have run many 180 gallon tanks on undergravel filters alone....they provide a very large area (the entire tank area) for bacteria to grow....i think they get a bad wrap because people dont maintain them proplerly, or maybe i should say dont know HOW to maintain them properly....

an UGF wont work with sand.....the sand is too fine and will be sucked through the slits in the filter plates