I would like everybodys views on UGF's

never had it, probably never will.........

would consider trying rfug tho, it sounded pretty interesting as a concept.

for some reason i'm thinking it would alot harder to short circuit the sytem (rfug), and would probably matter less if cichlids or something did.
 
UGF - The Real Pain

The pain with UGF's (which should be obvious..) is that maintaining them requires a 'total tank take down'. This means everything goes out of the tank. The time between 'turning your tank upside-down' for cleanings varies with ones' fish load.

Woo - Hoo ! :D
 
Joe - I have operated UG and RFUG up to 10 years without a "total tank take down", so from my viewpoint, it is still no more than a maintenance issue. If someone has to break the tank down due to build-up, they did not do the manitenance that should have been done. It is not inherent to the filter that they must be broken down periodically.
 
Originally posted by RTR
It is not inherent to the filter that they must be broken down periodically.
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Maybe with less suction downward on the gravel, and frequent vacuums, there would be less crud build up at the very bottom of the tank (?).
This is just me - but, I'd never have a UGF again.
Also, live plants and their roots would get into the grating of the filter...
 
I would say that they work well with plants, because they are holding the fertilizer where the plants can access it. I personally don't care for them too much. They can work well if you have the time to properly maintain them. Other things to remember...fry can get into them and you would never know it till you tear up the plates. I have heard of people finding 1/2" fish under their UGF plates. Sometimes quite a few of them. I do mostly cichlids and they do not go well with UGF anyway. Also, I do mostly all sand now...another no no with UGF. If you want a cheap filter that works well with air....go Sponges. They are actually cheaper and you can easily oversize...I normally put 110G rated sponges in my 55G tanks and 65G sponges in my 29G tanks.
 
80gJoe, I looked at your web tank picture, your discus set up is gorgeous. I had discus before but failed terribly because I couldn't follow the strict maintenance discipline.

When I had UGF before, I didn't know I had to maintain it. I just broke it down and washed everything in the bathtub every 3 to 4 months. But maintaining a UGF the right way is still harder than cleaning an outside filter. Vacuuming a 2 inch thick substrate on top of the plate and the gunk beneath it takes a lot more time than cleaning an outside filter.

Originally posted by RTR
UGs And if I don't count on those prefilters for bio, I can rinse them well under the tap without any concern for bacterial damage.
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It's not up to you to discount the prefilter for bio. A foam filter will always double as a biological filter even if you clean it frequently because bacteria will quickly recolonize it wherever the condition is right. A foam filter is a very effective mechanical and biological filter by itself.
 
Originally posted by Tiger15
80gJoe, I looked at your web tank picture, your discus set up is gorgeous.
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Thanks! I appreciate that! :)
 
Tiger - wanna bet? My used mech and canister prefilters are pulled, tossed in a separate bucket and replaced with clean dry ones. the dirties are well rinsed in tap water and sit on the side of the fishroom sink until next use. They have no bio component. Pure mechanical. It is much easier and faster to go around collecting and replacing than to make separate trips to the sink for each filter or tank. It is exactly up to me to know what is going on in my tanks, BTW.
 
Originally posted by Tiger15
But maintaining a UGF the right way is still harder than cleaning an outside filter. Vacuuming a 2 inch thick substrate on top of the plate and the gunk beneath it takes a lot more time than cleaning an outside filter.
Click to expand...

I agree that UGF maintenance is harder than other filter maintenance. In today's Generation Xers, convenience and anything "fast" is in, as in fast food, microwaves, cell-phones, broadband, etc. Most of the previous generations will still find UGF workable...just like some people still prefer DOS over Windows... :)

One disadvantage I find with UGF is that when I vacuum the gravel, it is hard for me to do a thorough job of vacuuming when I have a lot of rocks, driftwood, and plants in the tank. I'm not a fan of constantly re-arranging my tank setup just to maintain my UGF.

JM2C. YMMV.
 
Originally posted by RTR
Tiger - wanna bet? My used mech and canister prefilters are pulled, tossed in a separate bucket and replaced with clean dry ones. the dirties are well rinsed in tap water and sit on the side of the fishroom sink until next use. They have no bio component. Pure mechanical. It is much easier and faster to go around collecting and replacing than to make separate trips to the sink for each filter or tank. It is exactly up to me to know what is going on in my tanks, BTW.
Click to expand...

PTR, I hate to get into argument but you just don't get it. Do you really believe you can command the bacteria to grow wherever you want them to be? Do you really think you can direct the foam to provide purely mechanical and all bio go to the canister or UGF?

There are between one million to one billion of bacteria per cu inch of aged tank water and a lot more per square inch of any wet surface. So there is a lot of biological activities everywhere in your system and not solely confined in the filter you direct it to do bio. I can bet with a $million that within one hour of your foam replacement, whether it is brand new or thoroughly washed, you can see through a microscope that the foam surface is colonized with million of bacteria.
 
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