Gravel cleaning

[Michael Day]

I just saw an idea that I thought looked good. This guy had set up a 380ltr/100g tank with a overfow sump system which took care of the normal filtering process. He then had a secondary submersible pump which the discharge was piped in 15mm/5/8" pvc which was set up in a grid on the the base of the tank with holes drilled horizotally in the pipe and was then covered in aquarium gravel. Therefore when this pump was running any contaminants would be washed out of the gravel.

 

[Spiritofthesoul]

Its called a reverse UGF.

The "washing" is really inefficient as there are deadspots (area where water doesn't pass through).
Heavier gunk would also not be force out of the gravel bed. Hence you will still need to do gravel vac eventually.

 

[Michael Day]

P.S. I found this on a auction site in NZ whole tank for sale, so if its your idea I'm sorry and I didn't mean to cut in on you glory but it seemed to good not to share!

 

[BIG-G]

There are plates for under gravel filters sold that would be just as cheap as doing the plumbing and work much better. Just put a power head blowing in reverse. I'm just not a fan of this type of set up. I would just stick to vacuuming.