why not undergravel

As far as plants go, you can see it in two ways.... UGF creates
circulation of water through your substrate, thus bringing nutrients
to the roots. This is fine if you don't fertilize your substrate. The
other view, the bad one, is that if you do fertilize your substrate,
the UGF will wash the nutrients into the water column and potentially
cause an algae problem. In general I prefer to have a thick, rich
substrate so UGFs are not an option for me, plants grow better this
way IMO. If on the other hand you don't fertilize and you have a
rather thin substrate, the UGF shouldn't cause any problems, just a
pain to clean when required. Personally I'm a fan of canister
filters.

Hope that helps
Giancarlo Podio

"Pete Gennaro" wrote in message ...
I have a twin-tube UGF.

On one tube I have a Powerhead, and on the other I have an airstone through
a charcoal head.

The airstone is on a timer to come on and run at night when the lights are
out. I have deep gravel and always do a good job of vacuming.

The Amazon swords really grow some long roots so I will probably face the
problem of roots eventually, but for now I'm cool with it. By the time it's
a problem I'll be ready to change it all around.

wrote in message
news:UwFib.32072$La.13389@fed1read02...
I've heard that undergravel fiters are bad for plants and bottom
feeders, but I haven't heard why.

I put an undergravel filter in my 55 gallon tank because I knew
that it would be a nightmare to put it in after setting it up.
I also have a charcoal filter with an intake tube and a reservoir
which appears to be pretty standard these days.

My spotted dojo and my 3 coreys seem happy. My plants are doing well.
I have really deep gravel. I keep the air to the undergravel
filter cranked down pretty low anyway. I appreciate the sort of
filtering it does, and it seems to help get food down to where the
loach and the coreys want it. The only other fish are columbian tetras,
and they don't seem to mind.

So my plants are 2 swords, 4 moneyworts and 2 of these dark
evergreen-looking things that I don't know the name of. All seem to be
doing well but it's really too early to say that.