For all of you that are going to set up a tank and current tanks that you want to make
EXTREMELY low maintainance.
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article64.html
Cliff note version:
Undergravel filter are highly efficient filters. The whole gravel bed is a filter. Pain to keep clean because the crap is being sucked down into the gravel, thus much vacuuming is needed. Also, large rocks can create dead spots and if the fish dig, creats "holes" in the filter.
A reverse flow undergravel filter forces water the opposite direction, upwards thru the gravel with the pre-filter on the power head gathering all the crap. Thus to clean the filters, just pop off the pre-filter, rinse it off, re-attach...and done!!
An OVER ENGINEERED reverse flow utilizes egg crate light diffusers. Those are the white with lil open square fluorescent light covers.
Stack those with the blue/white filter media in between the diffusers. Cover the whole stack with nylon screen. Then cover with vineer of gravel for the fish to play with and for looks. The true filter bed is the layered media. Mine is stacked with 3 layers of media. In my 120g tank, that equals
18 square ft for bacteria sites to form.
In addition, I have the traditional hang on the back and canister filters.
Result = to maintain a 120g with 25 fish is ~30 min every 2 weeks
