Hi all, new here and just have a question, I'm making a reverse under gravel filter for my 100 gal tank, and I'm wondering if there would be any benefit to adding some of my carbon inside of the pvc pipes before installing so that not only would water be getting pushed through but it would be being filtered before filtering my substrate??
Reverse under gravel filter
- Thread starter vaughn
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Carbon only lasts a couple of weeks, a month at the most, before it needs replacing. This doesn't sound like it's going to be an easy job to do this once it's all installed.
Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
To be honest, a reverse UG defeats the purpose of the UG filter. The UG filter was designed for the water flow to go through the gravel pulling the detritus under the plate where it could break down with the added benefit of there being more area of higher oxygenation in the substrate to feed the nitrifying microbes. ( a.k.a. Biological filter). When you reverse that, yes you get cleaner substrate but then you are reducing the ammonia level that stays just above the substrate where the biological bed grows and deprives it of it's food. It proved out to not be a great idea. What was good was using powerheads to help pull more water through the filter plates as they were designed to do. In the end tho, the UG filter was found to not be the best method of filtering aquariums overall. TBH, the best filter ever made for aquariums was the material used in sumps ( DLS) because it had more area for the biological filter and had more oxygenation. Add to that that the filter design was just a shrunken down version of what the public water systems were using to recycle and clean the water that comes out of the tap. If it's good enough for us to drink, it's better for the fish too.
Can I ask why you want to go with an UG filter?
Similar threads
