under gravel filter

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I can't comment about the bio balls, but I have used biowheels and wouldn't expect the force of the water flowing through the gravel vac to be much greater than the water jets to spin the wheel, if any. sure you'll scuff off some bacteria shifting it around, but the actual contact points that get scuffed aren't that much of the total surface.

I will admit to having build up underneath in my early years. overfeeding and using small air pumps were both contributors. but getting the feeding requirements down and using either powerheads or a decent sized pump and I've been a campy hamper for many years.

great example on the glass skjl47.
 
LOL,Gill did you mean to say campy hamper?....To be clear about post #18 I left out that I never rinse my bio wheels or the balls.I only rinse out the mechanical and chemical portions of the filters.I used to worry about the water spinning the bio wheels but I don't any longer.The way I see it,as long as the wheels are being constantly saturated then they are doing their job.
 
UGF work but they use the gravel as the bio media and gravel has a low surface area vs ceramic rings/matrix, etc., thus cannot handle a large bio load. There are still many local fish stores around me that use them in all their tanks. I used them back in the day but with the new filters out on the market right now most people have switched for better filtration with canisters and wet/dry filters/hob because they can support more fish.

You can make your own UGF by using egg crate wrapped in screen and cut holes for the desired uplift tubes.


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ultimatejay said:
thus cannot handle a large bio load. There are still many local fish stores around me that use them in all their tanks.
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it's interesting you put these two statements together since I consider them to be contradictory. most fish stores around me tend to have heavier stocking than most aquarists I've seen.
 
ultimatejay said:
UGF work but they use the gravel as the bio media and gravel has a low surface area vs ceramic rings/matrix, etc., thus cannot handle a large bio load. There are still many local fish stores around me that use them in all their tanks. I used them back in the day but with the new filters out on the market right now most people have switched for better filtration with canisters and wet/dry filters/hob because they can support more fish.

You can make your own UGF by using egg crate wrapped in screen and cut holes for the desired uplift tubes.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
Click to expand...

Hello; Let see if I can break this down. In a tank with roughly bb sized irregular gravel at three to four inches or more deep (Which happes to be the amount I like to have in a planted tank.), You do not feel there is enough surface area for bb? Perhaps that it does not approach to the surface area of store bought ceramic rings and such? I am not going to try to dispute that claim as it may well be true. I do feel there has been more than sufficient surface area in tanks with gravel and UGF setups to have bb capable of handling the bioload. At least the tanks I ran for the first 15 to 20 years did and this early period was when I was guilty of serious overstocking. I did usually, but not always, have some sort of air operated HOB filter in operation as well as the UGF.
I also will have the gravel in most of my tanks, as I like a planted tank, so the gravel is going to be used and does not entail any additional cost. I do run some sort of HOB power filter with removable media along with UGF in some tanks. This gives additional surfaces for bb colonies. I can also run the dedicated bio-ball as well if I feel the need and want to spend the money.
At one period I had some HOB filters that allowed me to have layers of glass marbles under the replacable media. The glass marbles would become nicely coated with bb and the space between them allowed for good circulation so that I could leave them undisturbed for very long periods of time.
For those that like to use bio-balls, scrubbies, ceramic rings and such, I am not trying to lead anyone away as those things will work. There are other, old school, ways to achieve the same goals that are just as effective. The hobbiest has to learn how to operate each system. Not sure when bio-balls, ceramic rings and scrubbies were first available, but they are fairly new stuff to me (the last few decades). I know some of the old school stuff worked because it was what we had and knew how to operate. If it had not worked the hobby may not have survived to be able to generate the newer systems we have available. In the end we get to operate our tanks any way we want.
 
The issue with UGFs is that they are waste traps that you cannot empty sufficiently. You cannot tell me that you can more sufficiently remove waste from a bed of gravel with empty space underneath it than you can from a filter pad. Preventing nitrate creep means removing waste ASAP, and UGFs make it really easy to lose access to the waste. Simple as that.
 
I can't say that. but are you sure that's enough?
sure, when you remove the filter pad you are removing 99% of the captured waste, but that's just a percent of the waste in the tank. I don't know about your fish, but all mine poop down. I've only seen one fish poop floaters and once I got rid of the parasites his were also sinkers. in fact, with the UGF, everything in the tank goes down, so when I vacuum I know I'm removing a percent of the total amount of waste.
I can't prove that it's a greater percentage of the waste than you'd capture with the pad, but then neither can you prove that your diluted waste captured is greater.
beside, you don't want to remove ALL of it, my bacteria gotta eat!
as for nitrate creep... can't help you, since I don't get it. a 4" UGF bed, well maintained... sorry.
 
... direction of poop does not matter. Any adequate power filtration should remove a large majority of the waste that is produced. When I had playsand, which just allows waste to sit on top and not sink in, I never had to vacuum a single "sinker", I just had to stir the sand to keep it aerated (for obvs reasons). Even when I had gravel, my gravel vacs were usually not all that fruitful, waste-wise.

You do have nitrate creep. Nitrate creep is when you let your tank run for a period of time, and the nitrates have gone up. For example, you start at 0ppm (my tap) and a week later you hit 10ppm. With an UGF you are, just due to the waste-trapping abilities of it, going to have nitrates that, in this example, might reach 15ppm instead of 10. These are not precise numbers or data, just demonstrations of the concept I am trying to communicate.
 
wow_it_esploded said:
... direction of poop does not matter. Any adequate power filtration should remove a large majority of the waste that is produced. When I had playsand, which just allows waste to sit on top and not sink in, I never had to vacuum a single "sinker", I just had to stir the sand to keep it aerated (for obvs reasons). Even when I had gravel, my gravel vacs were usually not all that fruitful, waste-wise.

You do have nitrate creep. Nitrate creep is when you let your tank run for a period of time, and the nitrates have gone up. For example, you start at 0ppm (my tap) and a week later you hit 10ppm. With an UGF you are, just due to the waste-trapping abilities of it, going to have nitrates that, in this example, might reach 15ppm instead of 10. These are not precise numbers or data, just demonstrations of the concept I am trying to communicate.
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Hello; Is this an opinion based on you own personal experiencewith UGF?
 
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