Reverse Undergravel Filter

I have a good friend who kept fish for over 50 years before finally giving up the hobby. He swore by rugfs and I saw pics of his final 135 gal which was heavily planted and used an rugf.

If you run an undergravel filter it is better not to use root tabs however. Stick with water column ferts.

Also, to work optimally under gravel filters really should have a 3-4 inch gravel bed which utilizes a medium sized gravel. The smaller the gravel size, the more it will impede flow through the gravel bed.

The single best feature of ugf/rugf is they are as good a bio filter as there is. In a well planted tank this is not all the important since the plants are basically the primary biofilter. The other advantage to a rugf is that it tends to keep solid wastes suspended in the water where another filter can get them out.
 
I can add some more gravel. I could increase it to about 3", with extra gravel I have on hand. I was planning on using the seachem liquid products to fert anyway so not using tabs is not a major setback.
 
I'm running a RUGF using a Penguin 1140 Power Head and a Penguin Reverse flow kit. The kit comes with a sponge for the intake.
 
The RUGF on my 90G if fed with a Mag 750 in a sump tank. The return is 3/4" branched into the RUGF and a water jet. I divert 90% of the flow through the RUGF. I have 2-3" of 1/8" gravel in a lightly planted tank (lillies and iris). I have no lights, however the tank is directly in front of a window. My plants seem to thrive.
 
Penguin 660R is 'complete' out of the box; sponge filter, elbow to attach to UGF tube, etc...I have several and they work well.

Maybe 1 powerhead with an HOB filter or 2 without one in a 30G. I have HOBs on all my tanks in addition to the RUGFs

I grow:
Java Moss
Java Fern
Red & green Crypts
Amazon swords
Anubias

in lo-light RUGF tanks. They seem to do well; the only 'problem' I see is the roots getting into the RUGF sometimes...doesn't bother me.

And, of course, floating plants like anacharis and hornwort do fine :)
 
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For flow rates a general rule of thumb is three to four times your tank volume in an hour minimum.

RUGF and UGF tend to cause undesirable flow rates past the roots of some plants thus interfering with their ability to exchange nutrients from the substrate, A RUGF does this even more since it removes nutrients from the gravel (that’s the advantage of the reverse flow)
 
yep. Fert to the water column.
 
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