Thinking of getting rid of my underground filter. Need advice

[AvidDaisy]

I am thinking of getting rid of my underground filter. I want some plants, and already have an api xp3 canister filter as well. Would the canister be enough. I have a 125 gal

Daisy

 

[mikey11]

plants and UGF can live quite happily together....no real reason to get rid of it,

if it was me, i would keep the UGF and get rid of the cannister

but if your heart is set on getting rid of it, the answer is yes.....your cannister would be sufficient....if maintained properly

 

[AbbeysDad]

Without routine gravel vacuuming, UGF's can quickly become nitrate factories (and you just can't sufficiently gravel vac a planted tnak. Unless you intend to heavily plant with root feeding plants, I'd say that the UGF is best removed.
I much prefer a sand substrate. Yes the canister filter should be fine.

 

[Byron]

As someone who had an undergravel filter in a large tank (a 90g), and then changed over to a casnister, I would recommend the canister. I also had UG filters on several smaller tanks years ago; I now have only sponge filters on tanks under 70 gallons.

Undergravel filters are certainly efficient and effective. When I started in this hobby, these were about all there was, except for the boxy corner filter that took up space. But there are consequences with UG filters. For one thing, all the crud is permanently in the gravel and under the plate. I used to use a suction to pull out what I could from under the plate (up the air lift tubes) but it didn't get all of it, and it was tedious. Most of us have more fish in a given tank than an UG filter can effectively handle without some method of removing the crud.

Plants generally don't mind UG filters, though you will find many plant sources disagreeing.

Another thing is the substrate material. Sand is the best aquarium substrate in the majority of cases (the exception being tanks of fish better suited to gravel). Some substrate fish such as cories and many of the loaches should only have sand. So you have limitations with an UG filter because you cannot use sand due to it clogging the plate.

The API XP3 canister is fine for your 120g tank with plants. I had one of these exact same filters on my 5-foot 115g planted tank for six years. My only criticism of this filter is the enormous work it took to rinse the four pads clean. Clearly the filter was doing a tremendous job, else thee pads would not have been so dirty, but it was a lot of rinsing. But a good filter, on the whole.

 

[Toney]

Leave it alone and use it as a plenum

It's funny, people that never vacuum that are afraid of ugf.
mum in the substrate isn't any worse than mum under a ugf. I think of it as dirt for my plants.

It's also funny, the rumor that plants won't grow on a ugf

 

[AbbeysDad]

Leave it alone and use it as a plenum
It's funny, people that never vacuum that are afraid of ugf.
mum in the substrate isn't any worse than mum under a ugf. I think of it as dirt for my plants.
It's also funny, the rumor that plants won't grow on a ugf

@Toney - I think you meant mulm, not yer mum!? ;-)
I've been in the hobby a real long time. Back in the day, I had a UGF in a 10g and another in a 29h. These were fish only tanks back then with plastic decor, I gravel vacuumed, but I had issues with nitrates and anytime I took these tanks down, the mess down under was like a stinking cesspool or septic tank! And w/o sufficient vacuuming (as would be the case in a heavily planted tank) bio-filtration gets compromised in time as muck reduces circulation through the gravel.
A Reverse UGF might work much better!
Plants will likely grow in a tank with a UGF, but I think sand (with a compliment of Malaysian Trumpet Snails) is a much better option.

 

[Colin_T]

A Reverse UGF might work much better!

I had a 4x2x2ft tank with a reverse flow undergravel filter and loads of plants. It did really well. I used a power head to pump water down the uplift tubes and had a canister filter running on the tank. I still got gunk in the gravel but just did gravel cleans to remove that from areas without plants.

Water flowing through the substrate will prevent it becoming anaerobic.