Under Gravel Filters...!

[Tiburon72]

Hello to everyone,

I am reaching ou to the entire community for help and advice on this subject matter.

I have a 55 Gallon Aquarium with a tropical community of fish, (Angels, Giant & Zebra Danio's, Silver Tip Tetra's, White mountain Minnows, Guppies, and Chinese alge eaters). My question is:

Are under gravel filters good/beneficial for the planted aquarium?, every major article I've read on different web site's suggest the opposite....

Any help with this subject would help me tremendously, and would be very appreciated.

Very Sincerely
Tiburon 72:D

[K_S_W_I_S_S]

i havent tried one, but i heard they grow good roots and not so good plants... the ugf brings fresh, oxygenated water to the roots constantly. the roots like oxygen rich water, but with the flow, its hard to collect nutrients from the water so the plant itself doesnt grow so fast or well or something... now lets see what other people have to say....

[RTR]

If you are already comfortable growing plants more conventionally, go for it, you should not have any problems. If you are a novice with plants, don't - wait until you are fully comfortable with your ability to handle supplements and deal with algae.

You cannot use enriched substrates with UG/RFUG and plants - you need to stick to water column supplements only.

Overall, I think more conventional growth techniques are easier - but I do tend to use enriched substrates and substrate supplements, so that may just be my personal slant.

[somefinnfishy]

I find some of the hygo and plants like aracnis and anubis java ferns and moss as these plants like the flow around the roots or like floating.

[Matak]

I put my RFUGF on only one third of my tank and put a plantable substrate on the other 2/3 of the tank. I get the best of both worlds. My amazons and plants with runners still grow in the RFUGF side.

[cpr4cpu]

I tried reverse flow in half my tank for a while, and gave up simply because I wasn't getting the growth when there was water flwoing past the roots.
The anacharis and some other similar plants don't set roots, but anchors to hold themselves in place so an undergravel is fine for them. Basically, it it floats, or needs lead wrap weight to stay in the substrate, it will probably do okay with an undergravel filter and water column fertilizers.
I personally fertilize my substrate, and add all sorts of goodies that an undergravel would not work well with (laterite for example), instead I have moved over to penguin biowheels, and emperor biowheeels for all my tanks that need filtration.