spidergravy
New Member
Haha, I've found a thread to answer my questions without needing to ask one! But now I've thought of one to ask.
I've recently inherited a large (about 300l, depending on how I measure!) tank with an under-gravel filter. I've not used one of those before, and I've found that my nitrates are massively high and various water tests seem to vary from week to week, the water tends to be quite cloudy and gets messy quite quickly and I'm generally not too sure that it's either working or very effective. I also don't really like the lack of carbon filter, but I'm not sure how much of a problem that really is.
I've had a quick look at external filters, and I do like the look of the tetratec one, but, and here's the whole point of this, do I need to remove the undergravel filter when I use an external filter? It seems like it might be quite a hassle to dig up the gravel and remove the white plasticky thing, plus, will the resulting clouds of dead fish-parts and years (possibly as much as 19 years) of accumulated stuff under the gravel harm the fish in the time it takes the new filter to do its job and clean the water? I do hoover the gravel once a week but there's still a lot of gunk in there.
Also, when you say that external filters take less maintenance, what are we talking? Do I still need a weekly water change (or is that a by-product of my existing filter not being much good?)? How about replacing the filters inside the canister? For my internal filter on my previous tank I washed or replaced the little white wooly bit roughly once a week or once a fortnight.
Any thoughts or help appreciated, as ever!
I've recently inherited a large (about 300l, depending on how I measure!) tank with an under-gravel filter. I've not used one of those before, and I've found that my nitrates are massively high and various water tests seem to vary from week to week, the water tends to be quite cloudy and gets messy quite quickly and I'm generally not too sure that it's either working or very effective. I also don't really like the lack of carbon filter, but I'm not sure how much of a problem that really is.
I've had a quick look at external filters, and I do like the look of the tetratec one, but, and here's the whole point of this, do I need to remove the undergravel filter when I use an external filter? It seems like it might be quite a hassle to dig up the gravel and remove the white plasticky thing, plus, will the resulting clouds of dead fish-parts and years (possibly as much as 19 years) of accumulated stuff under the gravel harm the fish in the time it takes the new filter to do its job and clean the water? I do hoover the gravel once a week but there's still a lot of gunk in there.
Also, when you say that external filters take less maintenance, what are we talking? Do I still need a weekly water change (or is that a by-product of my existing filter not being much good?)? How about replacing the filters inside the canister? For my internal filter on my previous tank I washed or replaced the little white wooly bit roughly once a week or once a fortnight.
Any thoughts or help appreciated, as ever!