Magnar said:
I've got my tank up and running tonight. However it's all been passed on without any instructions. The question I have is about the under gravel filter. I've got the plasic trays under the gravel, an up pipe heading, well upwards. Into this up pipe I was advised that all I need to do was drop the stone ended tube from the air pump. However what I see is a line of bubbles travelling back up the pipe (they are rather differently sized). I understand that the idea is that the water is sucked down through the gravel where bacteria will deal with the fish produced nasties and then it is pumped out the top of the pipe. Will the trickle of bubbles actually do this and is there any other filtering I will need before I start introducing some fish to the tank? Also I can't see any part of the current set up (that appeared to work well for goldfish) that will clear out the physical rubbish. Is this something that vacuuming the tank will deal with?
Hello!
Congrats on getting your tank up and running! Sometimes they can be complicated to figure out...
My one gallon tank game with an under gravel filter (UGF). I had it in there for awhile, but after a week or three I removed it. I haven't put it back in and won't. I've decided I don't like UGFs. It kept the water quite clean...the tank water looked great. However, all it did was pull the mess and waste to the bottom of the tank. Extra food and fish waste will decompose over time and give off toxic chemicals. It is also hard to clean a tank with a UGF, I'd imagine, as you'd have to suck all that dirt and crud from under the gravel and under the UGF. I don't know how well that would work. I never used the gravel vac in my tank with the UGF, as it was a one gallon.
*My* suggestion, and other people may have different suggestions, would be to remove the UGF and go get a filter that hooks on the side of the aquarium and a gravel vac.
It sounds as if you got the UGF set up correctly, though. You even explained it well!
Explaning some of this fish-tank stuff can be difficult
Before adding any fish you will want to "cycle" your tank, i.e. get enough waste-eating/processing bacteria established in the tank before adding fish so you can prevent high levels of toxic chemicals such as ammonia and nitrIte. If you go to the Beginner's Forum and look at the pinned topics, you will see one about New Tank Syndrome/Cycling, written by AlienAnna. I highly recommend that you read it.
What size tank do you have? What kind of fish do you want to get? I just *love* setting up new tanks! It's so much fun to plan and arrange and re-arrange...
Keep us updated on yoru progress and feel free to ask questions!
Pamela
aka Lizard
