Do I Need An Ungravel Filter For A 35 Gallon Hexagon Tank?

[dianeej]

I have a 35 gallon hexagon tank that I have had set up for several years. It has an ungravel filter in it, but I was wondering if it was possible to do away with the undergravel filter so that I can use sand in place of gravel in the tank. Seeing as how the hexagon tank is such a deep tank, I am wondering if the ungravel filter is necessary? Someone mentioned to me that I can put sand in with an ungravel filter, but I would need to do a couple of things first. By leaving in the gravel and putting a mesh ontop of the gravel and putting the sand ontop of the mesh. This seems like it might work. Another person said not to worry about the mesh, that if I had a couple of inches of good gravel just put the sand ontop of the gravel and sprinkle a small amount of gravel on top so that I could still use my syphone hose to clean. That would definitely be the easiest, but I don't want to create a mess later on either. I would love to have sand as I have 3 Dojo loaches and I know they love sand. I would love to watch them burrow down under the sand.

Any advice you give me would be appreciated it.

Thank you,

Diane

 

[Westwood]

You cannot use a undergravel filter with sand, i had this issue and i, in the end, decided to buy a canister filter, but any of the fluval 05 series, i found it gave me alot better water conditions.

If you did use the mesh with sand on, i thought that alot of muck would set in with the sand, and not look very good.

 

[waterdrop]

Agree, you'll want to do away with the undergravel filter and replace it with an external cannister filter that gives you 4x turnover or greater. The four main competitors making these filters are Rena, Tetratec, Fluval and Eheim. The each have their own problems. Tetratec and Fluval sometimes have breakage problems. Rena are less readily available in the UK. Eheim is less readily available in the USA and is expensive.

The main issue with tall tanks is simply that they can hold less stock because they have much less surface area than a rectangular layout. Larger ones can also be difficult when doing substrate maintenance.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[dianeej]

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it. I think if I decide to go with sand, I will take out the undergravel filter. I have a Whisper In Tank along with the undergravel filter, right now, which seems to work good, but I am not too sure if it would be good with sand. If I do this, I will wait until after the first of the year.

I agree about the deep tank and not having enough surface like a rectangular tank has. It is a nightmare to clean also. My arms aren't long enough.

Thanks again. This helped.

 

[agusf]

i Thought about what filter to get for a long time when setting up tank. decided to get jbl clearprofi 200 internal.
i sometimes regret my choice for an external eheim filter, I know they may be expensive but are Great filters, my friend used to have
the same filter i have now and he swapped it for an external eheim. His tank is very clean and beautifull, and he has reduced his
weekly water change from 25 % 2 * per week to once 40 % per TWO WEEKS!!! his fish are also very happy. as for the other filter marks,
i know a friend who had a rena, it broke down after 2 months, something jammed it ,i forgot. she swapped for tetratec. The tetra tec
seems to be better for her, but it makes a little more noise than my other freinds eheim.
I dont intend on being biased on the eheim, but it is really good. I hope One day ill swap my filter for an external eheim.
but thatl be when i stop playing around with the objects in my tank!

 

[bassbonediva]

Undergravel filters pose many problems, the least of which is their inability to be used with sand. The biggest problem is that debris becomes trapped under the filter plate and it becomes one HUGE nitrate factory (which, as we know, nitrates are harmful to our aquatic buddies if present in too high of a concentration, which is why we do water changes).

Normally on tanks bigger than 30 gallons I recommend canister filters, but I'm not sure if one would work on a hexagonal tank. The in-tank filter you have should be okay with the sand because the sand bed is so far below the filter intake.

Also, sand is MUCH easier to clean than gravel. Gravel can have bits of debris fall into it and get stuck, requiring a bit more vacuuming to get clean. With sand, all you have to do is swirl your vac an inch or so above the sand bed and all the debris will float up and be sucked up by your vac. I have sand in four of my seven tanks and as soon as I can afford it, I'm switching to sand in the remaining tanks as well (need black sand for two of the tanks, which is rather expensive).