Removing U/G filter without toxic consequences?

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R

RAWfish

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 30, 2009
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I was running an U/G filter with a power head and a cheap HOB filter. One day the power head stopped working so I decided to do away with it. At that point I simply capped off the U/G tray and added a second small HOB filter... now skip ahead months later to after I replaced those two HOB's with an AC50... the tank is doing great on just the AC50, but I am wondering if and how I can remove the U/G tray without losing fish. I'm afraid that the muck under the tray might be deadly stuff.

Do I just leave it there forever? OR do I pull it out as carefully as possible and do a number of daily water changes?
 
When I removed my UG filter there was alot of crap underneath it. It was a felt like consistency almost and is where all the bio activity takes place. Now that you dont have good circulation through there i would be concerned about it getting real rotten and causing you major problems. Heres the process I went through when I removed mine. Id done it with another tank before and learned a couple lessons.

Move your fish to another tank temporarily - the water will get real nasty.
Drain 50% or more of the water.
Remove any gravel you dont want anymore
Lift up one side of the tray(s) and attack the gunk under them with your gravel cleaner. Since you already drained some water the stuff that escapes and spreads throughout the tank will be more concertrated and youll remove more of it per volume.
gradually move the tray back more as you suck up the detritus.
remove the tray.
Refil the tank and do a water change with an aggresive gravel cleaning.
Youll still have stuff in your water if youve had the UG for awhile but your filtration and regular water changes should be enough at this point to be safe.
If the UG filter has been sitting without circulation for awhile then you might have to be more concerned. my UG was literally running up until i removed it.
I havent lost any fish that I can attribute to the UG filter removal.
Just make sure too that your new biofiltration can keep up with what the old was handling

Good luck
 
I would put my fish in a different container. Place the AC50 on their (if possible). And do a good cleaning. Pull up the trays, vacuum replace water and your done.
 
Definitely use the gravel vac to suck up any gunk you can, but another trick I use is pulling the media from the AC50 & placing a fine mesh fish net/media bag/women's pantyhose over the outlet to catch gunk. Put your AC50 media in a bucket of the old tank water to keep it wet, then just let it keep running while you mess with the UGF. Removing the media makes it flow much faster (picking up more gunk), then when you're done you will have a full bag of nasty that can be easily thrown away & the good bacteria on your AC50 media won't be disturbed or thrown out. Just do a WC or 2 to get the water clean, then put it all back together.
 
I stopped using mine on my 55 gallon. Just took the lift tubes out, did a hardcore gravel vac session, and that was it. Ran it like that for a few months, then upgraded to a 75 and had no issues.
 
SemperFish;3744578; said:
When I removed my UG filter there was alot of crap underneath it. It was a felt like consistency almost and is where all the bio activity takes place. Now that you dont have good circulation through there i would be concerned about it getting real rotten and causing you major problems. Heres the process I went through when I removed mine. Id done it with another tank before and learned a couple lessons.

Move your fish to another tank temporarily - the water will get real nasty.
Drain 50% or more of the water.
Remove any gravel you dont want anymore
Lift up one side of the tray(s) and attack the gunk under them with your gravel cleaner. Since you already drained some water the stuff that escapes and spreads throughout the tank will be more concertrated and youll remove more of it per volume.
gradually move the tray back more as you suck up the detritus.
remove the tray.
Refil the tank and do a water change with an aggresive gravel cleaning.
Youll still have stuff in your water if youve had the UG for awhile but your filtration and regular water changes should be enough at this point to be safe.
If the UG filter has been sitting without circulation for awhile then you might have to be more concerned. my UG was literally running up until i removed it.
I havent lost any fish that I can attribute to the UG filter removal.
Just make sure too that your new biofiltration can keep up with what the old was handling

Good luck
Click to expand...

So I did this today. Bought a bare 20L (L as in "long"), set it on the floor and siphoned it full from the 26g. Put the fishies, filter, heater, and drift wood in it too. Then yanked the u/g filter from the 26g and vacuumed it real good. There was surprisingly little gunk under the u/g tray. That's probably because I kept the gravel pretty clean when I was using it. I then discarded some of the gravel because I thought the gravel bed was a just a bit too thick. I also moved the tank across the room, then reversed the process putting everything back in the 26. So far so good.

BTW... I had bought some floating water sprite which has been growing like mad. Since I removed the u/g tray, I decided to plant some of them... unfortunately the stoopid Chinese algae eater has discovered them on the bottom and is sucking the life out of them :irked: Now I have to decide if I want to let them float again, remove the CAE, or wait and see if they can coexist some how. Grrrrrrr :irked:

I will likely do water changes throughout the week in case I create a mini-cycle with all this tank fiddling.
 
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