filtration without disturbance.

Silver Aro

I've seen people with nice aquariums.....the ones with long green grass at the very bottom covering the entire aquarium floor. Wow, I don't know about you but, they do a really good job cleaning the gravel. Because I have to ciphon, cyphon? (Suck) away the litter every week. And planting all my plants back in is too problematic. I was wondering how do people maintain their tanks without having to disturbe the gravel?

im not familiar with undergravel filtration or undergravel bio bilters etc.....let me in on the info so I can do that too. I have these PVC pipes that came with my fish tank....still have them, but never knew what they did. These pipes have slots cut in them to allow water to enter.....and then they meet at a joint where a blue PCB pipe channels the water collected from the bottom to somewhere......Im not too sure.....but I think the idea is to keep the PVC pipes under the gravel? I don't know how those people keep their bottoms clean.....its like magic.

Lupin

Silver Aro, can you please post the picture of that PVC pipe setup? I find it interesting to see that one.

Silver Aro

here it is....the best pics i can get.


the blue pipe is on the very left. u can see the cut slots on the bottom PVC pipes. Currently I dont have gravel in there.. Well I do, but the cheap gravel are chopped up limestone.....so they dont help with keeping PH at 7......so i didnt use them.

Lupin

http://www.fishforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=2063
I would suggest reading this link. A diagram of the undergravel filtration is available in it. This type of filtration is controversial and its disadvantages far outweigh the advantages.
http://www.adelaideaquariums.com.au/...dergravel.html
Judging by your picture, the substrate size will be very important. If bits of the substrate enter the pipe slits, the pipes will eventually be blocked.
Nothing is magical. We simply vacuum the substrate as deeper as we could and as much as possible.;)