Building UGJ, need advice

[essabee]

Originally Posted by In.a.Box

what a UGJ? Heard of UGF but never UGJ.

You would have found your answer if you had gone through the posts on the thread.

Originally Posted by BenderBendingRodriguez

Undergravel jets for water movement I believe.

Originally Posted by Hoppy

Any system that pumps tank water under the substrate, so it passes through the substrate back to the tank, is a under gravel filter. Your reasons for using it don't change what it does. The goal should be to get roughly equal flow from every hole in the tubing. That requires that the total area of the holes not be much greater than the cross section area of the inside of the tubing. If the total area of the holes is much less than the area of the tube ID, you get strong jets of water from each hole. If the total area is much more than that of the tube ID, you get slower jets, and the holes farthest from the inlet to the tube may have very little flow out. When I was using this type of filter I didn't notice any stirring up of the mulm on the substrate. The flow from the jets gets diffused so much by the gravel that you can't see anything happening.

If there isn't much gravel over an area of the jets, you get a miniature gravel volcano, which doesn't look good. So, it seems that you have a choice of no visible effect or a bunch of miniature volcanoes.

[Sploosh]

Update:
Only pumps I can find that are powerful enough to operate the system, are either too large/external pumps, or, are far too expensive ($150+) for me to justify using. (can only justify if I were using it for an external sump system, with the return under the gravel, blah blah blah.

Not sure of what to do next, maybe just move everything over and continue the 2-3 times weekly gravel vacuuming *sigh*

[Sploosh]

Found a pump, lightly used, very powerful. 350gph with high torque load capability. Now back to testing, hopefully this pump isn't too powerful for the 20G

[Sploosh]

Tested: Pump works beautifully, system works great. Takes up too much space inside the 20G tank though

Putting everything to the side, will try this system in a 55G when I eventually upgrade.

At that point I will have to choose between sump or no sump.....