aehageman

Just because people report does not mean it is true. I read nothing hostile towards anyone. I was doing my best to ready everything that came in. Nothing unexpected came through. With my type of experience your are over moderating this forum. Maybe I missed something! but shutting us ALL down is WRONG! I do not stand for this type of censorship!! Hate speech is protected by the US Constitution!!

I spend hours a week writing on forums and working with forum moderators and owners. This is the most ridiculous use of power outside of the government I have experienced on a forum. Not only were your warnings vague they were unfounded. This DID NOT HAPPEN! Once a thread begins to veer from kind and helpful over to demands for evidence I start thinking about locking the thread. I am very close to locking this one. I was sharing evidence, willingly and often, that is the POINT of forums. Now I must find somewhere else to go. Really poor job Cory I am surprised and disappointed in you!! You just lost a very wealthy patron! I am certainly not wasting my time here any more!

Guess I missed that part of the videos.!

Thanks, my wife literally just left for the tractor supply store. We have a partial bag of special kitty. I will test both. I believe in one of the videos from Dr. Cat litter, He said it can be used as the substrate, but that he does not like to see the cat litter, so he does not use it that way.

Could aerial roots mean that your water is very nutritious, also? Plants grow in every direction they find food, yes? So they grow in every direction they find nutrition, not just in the substrate or just out into the water, but BOTH if the nutrients are available?

so I just need kitty litter something with iron, like lava rock? As the iron is the vitamins for the kitty litter.

Am I missing something? The cat litter needs to be clay, the laterite was only used for the Iron. Why does it need to be Clay?

https://googlechrome.github.io/lighthouse/viewer/?psiurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aquariumcoop.com%2F&strategy=mobile&category=performance&category=accessibility&category=best-practices&category=seo&category=pwa&utm_source=lh-chrome-ext

Forum notification do not have read and unread functionality, upfront and easy to figure out. I am new to this forum script, so correct me, when I am wrong. Most forums I participate in the notification area does something to allow you to tell read from unread. This is normally in your face easy to see. In the header drop down, Sure they are blue and white backgrounds, however, once you click ONE they all turn blue. Then when you view all notifications there is absolutely nothing to let me know what I need to read. I did figure out how to go to the unread area and click the filters. To figure this out. This took time and effort. Which is something we Internet Consultants call Friction. Less Friction means more views, more views means more time on site, more time on site equals more sales.

High flow is not required.. Slow flow is and can be the best. increase the size of the power head or aeration?

Laterite seems to come from India, so I reached out... It seems to be their sand! Maybe after some research, my friend will mail me a bag of dirt from his yard? If we are lucky. I just realized lava rock from the store is high in iron. Could be why my tanks do so well so easily? Besides me that is LOL! I am looking at tumblers and other mechanical ways to smooth the lava rock and now to make it pebble size!! The point of the laterite is the iron?

I am almost lost for words! Seriously where do I start? I found this link https://mjvaquatics.com/using-a-plenum-in-a-freshwater-aquarium/ Which led me to this https://mjvaquatics.com/anoxic-biocenosis-clarification-filtration/ to this video This is great you gotta watch it... then watch the next video I am going to find a replacement material for the laterite. http://www.bestpetsupply.com/shopping/pricelist.asp?prid=2796

I found out I know what a plenum is, just did not know the word for it. Googling now!

What tonyjuliano said!!! Did I mention you can stack them? @tonyjuliano and thanks for giving me more research to do.. "plenum" is my new word of the week....

Certainly penn plax Under gravel filters allow you to build to your liking. I have stacked them.

I love this article thanks! Is the wheel antiquated? The brown gunk is what you move to new tanks to speed up cycling!

I completely agree. I use all the above!! But only cause when I buy used tanks they come with stuff. I never have bought replacement filters. I have bought a few replacement rings... I like to over populate my tanks! water changes hooooe! Which I love a good water change. I am certainly NOT saying UGFs are better for YOUR (whomever is reading) setup. I just want to make sure people know that UGFs are better for MY setups and with proper education and instruction a UGF is probably the best all around filter for a long term tank setup.

I don't like to step on Cory's toes but UGFs are one size fits one size, [ buzzer sound!!! ] Sure you can not put a big LEE's for a 55g in 10g, but I have 55g Lees in my 45s and in my 65s and I have used them in my 100gs and 200Gs. There is no where that says it MUST fit the tank size. There is no where it states the entire bottom of a tank must be used for a UGF to function. The lees 55G is actually two plates. NONE of my tanks have two. Most of my tanks only one side has a UGF. Unless it is the 45 tall and then the 55G lees takes up over half the bottom. The 45 long is the same width as my 65tall and my 55s. so they are all halfsies. Really how many people shut down a tank when they upgrade to a bigger tank, don't most people just add the new tank? Thus why we all have 23 tanks in the house, office, kitchen, dining room, bed room, living room, etc. Maybe it is just me. The larger a tank the less surface area is required for a UGF to operate.. The larger the tank the lower the requirements for filtration. The larger the tank the easier to maintain. ETC! Scaling a UGF can be done by increasing water flow and substrate depth and type. I certainly do not want hangon my aquarium anything, if I were building a pretty tank. Which I do not build. "You can’t use it for the cycle," What? I certainly use it for the cycling new tanks, all the time. Get a scoop and a bucket. take the media from one tank to the new tank, leave the dirty stuff in the media. I do this ALL the time with new tanks. Then I add new substrate back into the old tank and new substrate over the cycled substrate in the new tanks. Do not remove all your substrate, Half at most, unless a large well established tank. The bacteria lives on the media, thus when you move some over boom there is your cycle started. I have a 32gallon trash can with water and lava rock. This is where my water sits to acclimate and where I season my substrate. For the pebble and gravel substrates, I just over fill a few tanks and leave for a few weeks, then I can remove as much as I want for new projects. Boom instant cycle starter. A UGF can do almost everything any other system can do except increase your maintenance time and costs! IMHO and experience, UGFs are more upgradeable than any of the options you mentioned. The real issue is that the market has educated people to think they way you think, because UGFs are not profitable recurring products. As Cory stated in a video, he was using MOSTLY UGFs in his store display tanks, until he allowed customers to peer pressure him into removing them. He also said the uplift tubes make it more difficult to catch fish to put in your baggy. just fyi. Everytime I go to buy something for a tank, I compare the price of that item to the price of another new tank. $50 buys a lot of tank and not a lot of filtration. Hard to buy a good NON UGF filtration system for under $50 that can scale up. Sure I can add 3 or 4 small hang on the back filters to a bigger tank, but then I have 3 or 4 back filters hanging on my tank. Now I have to buy filter replacements for 3 or 4 filters. Thanks for the feedback and I certainly see your point, I just see more options than you shared.

I wanna SEE!

That is what 'THEY' Want you to think.. LOL!

What other substrates have you used that did not perform well? Certainly anything so small it goes through would not work. Like sand is difficult. I have used sand with a mesh to keep it where it belongs. I was never happy with sand. Tiny gravel/pebbles was okay, but if you keep a dirty tank, like me, then 1/16" - 1/8" inch sized pebbles as substrate is what I like. Gives the roots and worms room to do their thing. Oh yeah and the MTS! You might like this article https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0075951111000399 Remember when reading this, that they were not studing a UGF, so grain size is not as relevant to this study when using a UGF. From what I understood and used to draw my conclusion is that a UGF would increase the roots access to the nutrients.

At some point sure the roots could cause some issue, I have never had an issue roots blocking too much flow. Roots need flow for nutrients and aeration. In my experience UGF tanks have better plant growth. I have used back filters to grow tomatoes and the roots grew down the water fall into the tank and never clogged the back filter. It certainly looked clogged, but the water fall was still running strong.

I completely get this, feeling! I did some water changes today, just cause of that feeling. I was really surprised at the amount of bla I stirred up around the UGFs. I often put a large hose down the uplift tube to pull out what is under there. Often I connected my return to the uplift tube forcing clean water up through the gravel. Half the tank is pulling down into the UGF and then the flow is being passed to the next tube and going up through the next UGF. UGF and RFUG combo!! Reverse Flow undergravel filters are really good when you want to polish your water. Also with my stands, at the time. 2X4s and concrete blocks or the default iron stands, it is very simple to look UNDER the tank and through the bottom to see how much dirt is there. Which is also the only way to spy on the Kuhli that live there. If your stand base is solid, this does not work. Obviously. These days I am using a combination of methods with little to zero water polishing. I only clean when I get that feeling! I love dirty tanks and detritus worms!! Did I mention SNAILS!!! Think I am going to go build a RFUG now!

Here is how I see this. UGFs are not a recurring income product. They have no filter to replace, no media to replace, etc. There is no reason someone using a UGF will contact Marieland for a replacement O ring link I current am required to purchase to revive my magnum 350. Besides never really knowing what is under them @Ken D., which I can help fix, I can not think of any Cons, that I can not fix. Unless you buy a cheap one that breaks easy. Lee's are super and not cheap, @Beardedbillygoat1975 stated above that they are robust. Very true. I have broken many CHEAP UGF building with rocks my cichlids could not move around. LEE's, while I will not stand on them, I bet my 13 year old son could stand on them.

I have used with my kuhli loaches in the distant past. Be sure to weigh the Filter down as they will get under it. But this is not bad as they prefer this space under the UGF. Except you will not ever see them, once they can get under it. EVER! LOL! Plants LOVE UGFs!