An UGF for a Planted Tank

[essabee]

All my planted tanks use UGF, under gravel filter. I have made slight design changes to make the UGF compatible to planted tanks, and also for mechanical filtration necessary for water clarity.

The first change that I have made is to get rid of the necessity of the UG plates, instead I use plastic pipes which have slits cut into them in spray bar manner.

The second change is that I have limited the UG only to the front strip of the tank (from 3" to 6" wide depending upon tank size), this enables fish viewing in heavily planted aquariums. I have done this by walling off the front portion with a vertical strip of glass or acrylic, siliconed to the floor and sides, separating the rear plant substrate from the front. This stops the plant roots from interfering with the UGF.

The third change is that only the lower inch of the UGF is dedicated to biological filtration, the upper portion, which is separated with a net, contains 40 mesh sand which does good mechanical filtration.

The UGF is the suction system for power-heads tucked away at the rear corners of the tank and hidden behind the vegetation.

[vinz]

Ha. I was wondering how you stopped the roots from interfering. Interesting set up. How high is the substrate in front, including the UGF? And how thick is the substrate above the UGF?

[essabee]

I use 3" to 4" thick substrate, that is again something I make for myself from locally available materials, we will talk about that later.

The separation wall varies from 3" to 4" depending upon the size of the aquarium. In smaller tanks the height is 3". The pipe used is 0.5" inner diameter = 0.8" outer diameter. This takes away 1" depth to the lower portion the one with ceramic rings. I have only recently taken to the use of ceramic rings (ceramic noodles some call it). In my earlier days I used pea size pebbles for this portion.

For the mechanical filtration I get to use at least 2" sand. You should match your power heads to the surface area of the UG filter so that the rate of flow when divided by the total surface area should not be more than 0.5" per minute. This gives the best mechanical filtration with the sand media.

A weekly vacuuming of the sand is all that the maintenance of the filter demands - you could lengthen the period to once a month but not more or else the sand would pack up and restrict the flow.

It naturally follows that the substrate behind the wall of the UGF is of the same depth as the UGF itself. This is to enable the substrate and the UGF to hide the wall from being viewed.

I normally use some of the gravel which forms the top surface of the substrate mixed with the sand of the UGF. I also try to use sand which matches the colour of my substrate. This hides the difference of material in the UGF and the substrate and brings homogeniaty.