10 Gallon AIO Style RUGF

[Osprey223]

After the success of my "Florida Tank" and taking inspiration from @Lasse's system as well as @sam.basye's foam wall article I am gearing up to try my hand at another tank. My Florida tank runs a reverse flow undergravel filter (RUGF) as well as an HOB filter for flow and some mechanical filtration. As mentioned in that build thread I have had zero problems with that tank. I intend to nearly fully rely on biological filtration for this one.

Taking inspiration from Lasse (Check out his reef of the month article if you haven't already!) I am going to run a RUGF in a rear compartment rather than the entire footprint of the tank. I will have some foam or filter floss in the overflow compartment solely to cut down on waste that will be pumped through the RUGF. The bottom of the overflow will have a pump with a tube running through the partition wall into the plenum under the sand. I haven't fully conceived of how to have the water post RUGR return to the display yet though. Not sure if I will have a return pump or not or rely on the current up from the filter to overflow back into the display. (Suggestions welcome on that!) I also intend to grow mangroves out of this rear compartment in the future.

So that's the filtration, what about the rest of the tank you may ask? Rather than having this "AIO" contained in acrylic I was inspired by @sam.basye to create a foam and rock wall for this tank. I have planned on building a tank with one of these for a long time now and then integrated it with this new RUGF design.

If anyone has any suggestions or advise feel free to let me know! I am really excited to give this all a go.

 

[Lasse]

Some suggestions.

Use 10 ppi foam or 5 ppi (if it exist) otherwise I´m afraid that it will clog rather fast. I also think that you need some emergency and balance outlet. As I understand - you pump in eater above the foam and pump water below the foam and up in the sand bed. The "in" pump needs to be a little bit stronger so its always is a little cross flow between the chambers. This crossflow "hole" must be large enough to take the whole flow if the foam clog.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Jackalope12]

After the success of my "Florida Tank" and taking inspiration from @Lasse's system as well as @sam.basye's foam wall article I am gearing up to try my hand at another tank. My Florida tank runs a reverse flow undergravel filter (RUGF) as well as an HOB filter for flow and some mechanical filtration. As mentioned in that build thread I have had zero problems with that tank. I intend to nearly fully rely on biological filtration for this one.

Taking inspiration from Lasse (Check out his reef of the month article if you haven't already!) I am going to run a RUGF in a rear compartment rather than the entire footprint of the tank. I will have some foam or filter floss in the overflow compartment solely to cut down on waste that will be pumped through the RUGF. The bottom of the overflow will have a pump with a tube running through the partition wall into the plenum under the sand. I haven't fully conceived of how to have the water post RUGR return to the display yet though. Not sure if I will have a return pump or not or rely on the current up from the filter to overflow back into the display. (Suggestions welcome on that!) I also intend to grow mangroves out of this rear compartment in the future.

So that's the filtration, what about the rest of the tank you may ask? Rather than having this "AIO" contained in acrylic I was inspired by @sam.basye to create a foam and rock wall for this tank. I have planned on building a tank with one of these for a long time now and then integrated it with this new RUGF design.

If anyone has any suggestions or advise feel free to let me know! I am really excited to give this all a go.

SRW Ec8 fabric was designed to keep clay in place so would probably work well keeping the sand from clogging the drilled tube with sand

It would be available where landscape blocks are sold look up Unilock, Belgard, Techo Bloc are sold (not a box store) and I would

And I know my local places are willing to cut by the foot but am unsure if other places do