UGF or not in a planted aquarium

I am not as experienced as most of the people on this site but I do have one of my aquariums (I have 7 small planted tanks) setup with an underground filter. Its a 30 Long tank and is heavily planted, 100% flourite, 6WPG lighting, pressurized CO2 with an Aquaclear HOB (I keep the water level topped to reduce co2 loss), standard UG (not reverse flow) with 2 small AquaClear PowerHeads. I have little to no algae, perform 50% H2O changes weekly and dose following the Estimative Index and add Excel to keep the bba from growing. I do vacuum some of the gravel if I pull a section of plants out to trim and replant. Otherwise, I don't have much gravel showing to vacuum. This tank has now been running for about 9 months with this configuration. Before that, it ran for about a year with lower light and no CO2.

Obviously with this much light, I do have to stay on top of the dosing and maintenance but I think its worth it. This is my favorite tank and the plants grow faster than in any of my other tanks.

Mike

Ive never tried it, but ive read up on it, and the biggest con is that it sucks out nutrients, mulm, etc from the gravel that plants need, and therefore is not the best option for filtration.

I have no issues with RFUG planted. It works fine for me, I think 2-3 years now but I'd have to check the records to be sure, it may be longer. I'm running both Flourite/gravel and plain gravel planted RFUG tanks. As with many of the other myths about undergravel filtration, I think we can add not being compatable with planted tanks to that list. I don't think that I would be comfortable with a conventional flow UG set planted though - it would present too many cleaning issues.

IMO you need about 3 inch of gravel for roots to spread (but with a 15 gal you will not have lots of big plants). The roots clog the flow of water through an UGF.
I would leave it out. With a small tank (15gal) if you keep your fish population low and have lots of plants and do water changes, you may not need a filter, just a little circulation.

In my RFUG tanks I have not had any cloging by the plants in over 3 years (I did check the records), so I consider that another aquarium myth that folks repeat without ever trying it for themselves.

I would just avoid UGF's altogether, planted or not.