UGFs, Live plants and gravel????

Craig66

Craig66

Spyro Maniac
Oct 20, 2004
22
0
0
Deadwood, SD
I am using a RUGF in my 30 g tank. I have app. 2 inches of gravel on top. I started adding plants that I bought from Wal-Mart that are pre-potted. The instructions I got were to bury the pot so that the gravel is just above the rim of the pot. The amount of gravel I have is not enough to do this. It only covers about 2/3 of the pot, but the plant has a tendency to "float" around.

My question is, How much gravel can I put in without losing the benifit of the RUGF? It appears that I need to add another 2"s or so to plant the plants. I just hope that's not to much gravel.

Hope someone can help
Craig
 
Perhaps you can weigh down the potted plants by placing rocks or stones inside the pots with the plants. Just an idea.
 
what kind of plants are they? Normally you can remove the plants without a problem. What I see might get in the way though is the roots of the plants with the UGF, the roots tend to creep into the holes, clog things up and cause problems of it not working to it's full capacity. When I had my tank set up that way though, I had a 55 gallong with only 2 plates at the bottom under the gravel and the outside being bare under the gravel which is where I planted the plants. I also had 2 HOB's on the tank for added filtration though.
 
The plastic pots with the commercially propagated plants are for the convenience and ease of the producer. They should be removed and the plants planted in the gravel.

I have a test tank with RFUG heavily planted which has to date had no problems whatsoever (thank you Tom Barr - who for the record says that such is posible, but not the best technique for planted tanks. While I do agree with that, I just had to try).

I do use more gravel than you have, 3-4", but am in the process of resetting 2-3 more tanks to expand the trials - at least one will be more shallow gravel to see is there are any issues from that (I tend to very shallow gravel for unplanted tanks, fairly deep for planted). The only thing for me to learn to date was to use only water column feeding, where I normally use a good bit of substrate supplement.
 
bzboy, Thanks for the suggestion, however I have tried that. If the plant starts to sway, the rocks fall off. I think my Gourami's like to see who can tip it over first.

Dangerdoll, not sure what kind of plants these are. One has large leaves that are light green with white towards the center, and the other is more like grass. Not much info on them at Wal-mart. All that's listed there is "Asorted Plants". These are an experiment. Never tried live plants before and wanted to go the cheap route to see what happens.

RTR, how long has your planted RUGF tank been going? When you remove the pot, do you also remove the packing from around the roots, or do you plant the packing with it?

I'd like to add at least another inch of gravel. I have a whisper 30-60 filter that has 2 filters, so I should have enough filtration if the RUGF starts losing it's potency. I plan on eventually upgrading to at least a 55 gal and what I do with this one is still up in the air.

Thanks to all for the feedback. Any other ideas I would gladly welcome.
Craig
 
My oldest planted RFUG trial is between a year and a half and two years in operation. The Val that lines one side and the back of the tank has provided enough material to plant the 55 in the same pattern, plus 2 40s and a 30 (conventional planting, not RFUG'd). The crypts multply more slowly, but I have gotten enough to do the foreground of one the 40s with them. But do note that this is still for me an experimental technique (I've always said not to UG and plants generally), but I trust Tom Barr's judgement on such. The success of the older tank is the reason that I am doing more - it seems to fit my moderate light and minimal supplements style. So I want to try more tanks with a larger selection of plant varieties

The rock wool that is used in the pots should be removed as much as possible before planting. I work in a clear baking dish with water, teasing the roots out away from the rock wool. I do not get every bit of it, but I remove >>90%.
 
Thanks for all the info RTR. I'm planning on adding more gravel and planting the plants this weekend when I do my water change. Going to try to get it to about a 3" depth.
Just out of curiosity, is there anyway to tell if the RUGF is losing it's potency? I'm just afraid of going to deep with the gravel.
 
If your RFUG is prefiltered and you keep the sponges rinsed, there should be nothing to clog the gravel. I use Penguins and their reverse-flow kits myself. The sponges are bit coarse, and even with routine rinsing some fines do get through. But when I broke down the original RFUG trials I ran after ten years' operation, the gravel was still clean and only a fine dusting was under the plate - detectable, but not any real buildup.

If you want to test, just push your gravel washer siphon all the way down in the corners - see if you can see much in the way of fines or buildup of mulm. With normal aquarium gravel, there should not be much.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom