undergravel filters

xsdbs

xsdbs

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Oct 16, 2006
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I have read before that undergravel filters should not be used for saltwater tanks. is this true? I have a friend here at work who is new to the hobby and is setting up a new tank for fish & corals. today I was talking to him about his set up and he mentioned that the lfs has sold him an undergravel filter and said that this would help as well as the sold him on crushed coral. :confused::confused:. any information will be appreciated.
 
If it's going to be a FO / FOWLR, then it could be ok, although I wouldn't recommend an UGF or CC for any marine tank. If there's going to be invertebrates / corals in the tank, in my mind the last thing one would want to do is suck all the detritus to the bottom of the tank and store it under a plastic grate. Typically, we want to remove detritus from the tank as much as possible, not pile it up someplace. This is because large amounts of detritus can break down into sizeable amounts of nitrates, which are not particularly desirable in a marine tank. As for the CC, different people have different opinions, but I'm not a fan of how it can collect detritus, nor do I like the way it looks. Depending on what he plans on stocking the tank with, it could be a very bad substrate choice.
 
I used an undergravel and CC on my FO puffer tanks for 7 years.. mainly because that was what I was told at the time and I didn't know any better (1994). I wouldn't do it now that I know more... but I will say I never had any problems with my tanks using them. I did have to vaccuum the CC quite often though, and monthly I would move all the CC to one side and pull out the UG filter, syphon the gunk under it, and repeat on the other side.
 
To be honest I would stop him if he was my friend. I would say NO dont do it. Its not worth the future headaches that can occur not to mention if they do and you want to remove it.

I also agree about Detritus build up being trapped. Nothing good will come of this. Nitrate build up will be greater due to that junk. Not to mention what ever else comes your way like "cyano" thriving on the CC because under them is an abundance of food.

I implore him to NOT put that undergravel nitrate housing in.

Also Ace above admits he had to siphon and disturb his substrate which in turn is also bad. Its bad for the inhabitants of substrate to move and stir it so much ... you can wipe out beneficial things in one push. There was a good article and study on sand beds and not disturbing them somewhere... and why we dont stir them..let the critters do it.... at the same time it covered knowing when to clean the sand out for new...=)

Ill do some digging ..if I can find it I will come back and link it.
 
Ya, I had a stars and stripes puffer in the tank and it would poop more than a small cat daily. I would literally have to go in with a pooper scooper and pull it out daily and vaccuum at least 2x a week. Was not a fun chore and like I said, knowing what I know now there is no way I would use CC or an UG filter. Like ToeJam said, definately not worth the headache. At best you will have a barely stable tank, at worst you will lose a lot of livestock. I didn't have any crabs or snails in that tank obviously.. the puffer would have ate them in a second if I tried, so my only choice was the clean the tank by hand. First time I started taking out the UG filter to clean was about 6 months after setup and I could not get nitrates to drop below 40 even from doing 90% water changes daily... then someone told me to clean under the UG filter, and when I pulled it out there was a very thick matte of nasty brown stuff that all stuck together like a carpet so it was easy to syphon out without disturbing too much.. but never a good idea to cause that much stress on tank inhabitants. I never had any cyano or hair algae problems though, but I contribute that to me using a simple $10 "Shop light" from Wal-Mart for my lighting.. which is fine on a FO tank. I only had an Emperor 400 filter and a Seaclone150 skimmer for filtration, no live rock (again, bad and I wouldn't do that now).

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Thanks again for the help Ace & Toejam. I will need to talk to him tomorrow. I believe his tank has only been up a few weeks and is going thru his cycle so it would be best for him to remove it no rather than later. The place that sold him on it is a fairly big place here and raises most of their stock. I would really think they would know better or at least the negative affects that could come to a coral tank.
 
xsdbs said:
Thanks again for the help Ace & Toejam. I will need to talk to him tomorrow. I believe his tank has only been up a few weeks and is going thru his cycle so it would be best for him to remove it no rather than later. The place that sold him on it is a fairly big place here and raises most of their stock. I would really think they would know better or at least the negative affects that could come to a coral tank.
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That's the problem I have with one local store but they are honest enough to admit when they barely know about salt...and usually have one guy on hand that does. I bet you are getting advise from someone who doesnt even have an established reef tank.

No established reef tank would have high nitrates or have things that would contribute to build up of it. This is something we avoid like the plague. It is bad enough we have to target feed...test often...top off with RO water.

The last thing we want to do is get our hands wet more because we are cleaning a patch of cyano or changing more water because we over fed.

Ace knows the annoyance of this im sure lol. I want to mess with my tank as little as possible.
 
ToeJam said:
That's the problem I have with one local store but they are honest enough to admit when they barely know about salt...and usually have one guy on hand that does. I bet you are getting advise from someone who doesnt even have an established reef tank.

No established reef tank would have high nitrates or have things that would contribute to build up of it. This is something we avoid like the plague. It is bad enough we have to target feed...test often...top off with RO water.

The last thing we want to do is get our hands wet more because we are cleaning a patch of cyano or changing more water because we over fed.

Ace knows the annoyance of this im sure lol. I want to mess with my tank as little as possible.
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yes I would expect it from a smaller and not so educated store but not this place. They have a large layout and do a lot of tank raised corals and frags. so it seems strange for the to say it's good for his tank.
 
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