Please Help With My Ugf!!!! Pics

M

meaghan9930

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Oct 27, 2005
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I have a UGF that came with my 2.5 gal. tank setup. I dont know all the technical terms for all this stuff so you will have to bare with me. It has a little motor thing that sits outside of the tank with an air tube that goes in the tank through a thicker tube into the bottom under the gravel to a plastic hexagon shaped thing with holes all in it. The motor only blows air and I just dont see how it all works???? It just seems like it is blowing bubbles out.???

I have enclosed some pics for you to see

Thanks

Filter End.jpg Filter in Tank.jpg Filter Motor.jpg Filter Top Tank Tube.jpg
 
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Your pump is an air pump. The air line attaches to the pump should have something attached to the other end called a defuser. The defuser makes the air bubbles smaller. The tube that goes down into the gravel is called a lift tube. You place the defuser, with the airline attached, down to the bottom of the lift tube. The air bubbles will gently lift water up through the lift tube. This suction then pulls water from the tank through the gravel.
 
if you do an askjeeves search for filtration of UGF you'll get some sites with illustrated diagrams and an explanation of how the water is filtered
 
I had the same set up you have. Maybe theres more to it on a large tank or bigger system. I usually just ended up taking everything out of the tank to really clean it. After the 3rd time, I threw away the tube and the black part that goes in the bottom. I really didnt see the worth of shoving an air stone in a plastic tube, hooked to a black plate covered in gravel. Nothing ever came up the tube but air. The gunk and waste just sat on the gravel, same as if I didnt have all that sillyness in the tank. Those tanks are barely big enough to put an airstone in them anyway. I just pour some tank water in a bowl, net my bettas, put them in the bowls and give thier tanks a good weekly cleaning. About the same deal when I was blowing air in a plastic tube. :)
 
there is definately worth!

w/ only an air stone you're getting no filtration

the air stone creates a flow of water through the gravel bed so that the entire gravel bed can house your bacteria colony that does the filtering i.e. eating amonia and nitrites before they can poison your fish they have to have oxygenated water to survive that is why the water flow provided by lift tubes, under gravel plate and airstone/pump are all necessary. please don't do what walker did unless you buy a different kind of filter to replace it.
 
UGF's (at least in those setups) are only for bacterial filtration, not mechanical. The gunk does get trapped below the plates and that is why you use a gravel vacuum to get that gunk out.
 
I am sorry if I gave out bad info. Just in my case its not worth trying to gravel vac a 2.5 gal tank, they are pretty small. These are pretty cheap set ups. I just removed the "filter" part, but left the air stone in the tank. After using it with and without, I had the same results. The filter plate gathered no gunk the 3 months I had it in there, and since I dont have a gravel vac small enough to use on a 10 inch tall tank, I had to clean it at the sink anyway. The up tube just took up swimming space for my guys and they got better airation with out the tube, because the tube tops off right about even with water level. On a larger tank, that is built to last the situation may be different. On a 15 buck plastic box with lighted lid, don't expect alot of filtration.
 
you shouldn't be taking your substrate out every week because it kills off any benefitial bacteria- you are having the same result because your tank has never gone through a cycle - you start from scratch every week- you never gave your ugf time to mature and become effective

sorry but this is how it works
 
Thanks everybody for the info. I usually just give it a good vacuum every Monday. THe tank seems fine and so do the fish. I figured that is what it was for just keeping the water moving for oxygen.
 
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