Most recent revised edition was published in 2023.

OMG! I didn't even know the UGFs were still made. I just spent 2 hrs listening to reviews on the newer filters available. I'm 74 and plan on setting my 20 gal long tank up after I get moved to Fairbanks, AK. Back in 1971, I bought a 10 gal setup for my first aquarium at Rich's Discount in Atlanta, GA. I asked a lot of questions and decided on the UGF they sold way back then. I also wanted it to be a salt water tank and had wonderful success. I had a few live rocks, a seahorse and something else. I was so surprised one day that the seahorse (male produced babies. One day I had little jelly fish appear. I had casualties though, as my uncle had 2 150 gal tanks and was raising brine shrimp. I allowed the shells to get into my tank and they stopped up the stomachs of the seahorses. The tank was so well balanced even for a 10 gal and my UGF looked just like the one in your video except it was white and I had about a half inch loosely woven mat that laid on top of the UGF. On top of that was the crushed oyster shell. The part I'm fuzzy on was the UGF was hooked up to an outside filter that maybe the power air tube fed?? Maybe you can refresh my memory on that part because I think I will go back to this after I move. Wonderful review from North Texas

nice

Hey Bentley, I am forseeing a future where my humble 20 gallon gets overrun by guppies. I am coincidentally in the process of setting up a 40 breeder in my living room. I was wondering what a suitable sized “predator fish” might be that I could feed the extra fry too? Sorry if that’s not your style but none of my LFS will take them and it’s not a fancy strain or anything so selling them isn’t feasible either. I was thinking Congo tetras.

I like the plant choices. James did a good job with the aquascape.

I love the rock scape.. I have tried to do something like that ... Its looks rubbish..i dont no how you guys get the ideas.... 😂.. Just question... Are columbian tetras ok with young platys..there about a inch long...in a 30 gallon long tank... Thank you 🙏... Always enjoy your channel... Thanks Bentley

I just found at least 6 turquoise rainbows in my extracted plants that have been in a bucket for 6 days. I've been adding a bit of RO water each day. I was not expecting fry, I have not raised rainbows before. Wouldn't one of those disposable coffee filters clamped to the side and top of the tank work well?

Can you make some podcast please Bentley?!? I’d listen to anything you have to talk about. I’m running out of fish podcast to listen to. I’ve ran though KQ tropical and father fish. All of your videos too man. Keep up the content. You even made a video for me and heater failure. Thanks so much ❤

You, father fish , the two bald tropical guys and history in your aquarium are my favorite guys on you tube for most things. And keeping fish simple. That kids a genius I thinks it’s kg tropics or something he’s always with his wife then the professor guy and his wife.

Looking good, but why, why is everyone's scapes look better than mine!

I had my plants grow too fast in my tank with 6 very young/small and breeding Turqoise Rainbows. I decided to put all the plants I removed into a bucket, 5 days later I have at least 2 fry!!!! epic, I have not kept or bred Rainbows before, exciting ! Is there a easy way to make home made food? I dont have supplies for fry....

How is it brother-in-law James involved in this tank?

What plant substrate is being used?

Why an FX6 for a 40 gallon? That seems... excessive.

I assume you're going to stock african cichlids because they are plant friendly and I know you love them.

It’s going to be Honey Blue Eyes 😌

I love the stones. Looking for some new ideas for my wife’s makeup desk. Going to do a 5g long. Rimless with some dragon stone I think and few Redding plants. ❤ probably a few chili rasboras and tetras. Bought my first blue dwarf ram yesterday. She’s very observant

First ❤❤❤

😊

$16 for a large jar is too much. I can get them for $8. I think your local store is gouging you. I also use the Spirulina. My fish love the stuff. The color enhancing flake that I got was super fine. Maybe I just got the tailing from a batch. It's fine for nano fish but my bigger fish won't go for it at all because it's just too small.

I have turtles. I had to use the box filters instead of sponge filters because turtles are dumb and always have the munchies. So they bite and eat the sponge. It’s the same reason I have to use a bare bottom setup, they will eat rocks and dirt and plants. Rocks and driftwood are the only decor I can use haha. In that scenario, the box filter actually fits in among the rocks and wood.

I feed the Fluval Flakes, and my water has not turned red. My fish are still pale. The fish seem otherwise healthy. We have no bullies in the tank, and water is all within parameters. My tank is in a south facing window (no other place to put it), and I'm wondering if maybe all the direct daylight might be causing the problem. My tank is heavily planted, but I would think that would be a plus. There are two fish which have not faded in colour, and they are my two hillstream loaches. The other possibility could be that I just suck at fish keeping. Any idea would be appreciated.

I used hot melt glue and a piece of cut netting to cover the top intake. Food sticks and fish get to snack.

I just wanted to mention that the Lee's UGF is much sturdier than the Penn-Plax one.

People spending thousands on high end filters that constantly break and need maintenance meanwhile these are chilling in your local thrift store for 5 cents

I have an FX and a 07 series. Both have great warranty cover. The physical screw connector, double o-rings and self-priming pump on the FX series gives fantastic and easy operation. The 07 series is amazingly portable, quieter than the FX and really innovative.

I am getting back into aquariums after 25 years, and I am planning to set up a 750 litre (150cm x 100cm x 50cm) planted tank using an undergravel filter (UGF) system for discus and angels. I want to use a coil heater under the the UGF as my experience with planted tanks in the 80s was very positive using a coil heater. Although I did not use the coil heater with a UGF. My daughter lives in Holland and they use coil heaters under the substrate and achieve amazing plant growth and low maintenance tanks. They never vacuum the substrate and do automatic water changes. The only maintenance they have is cleaning the glass and cutting the plants from time to time. "Under substrate heaters" appear to be a taboo subject these days. From you extensive knowledge and experience what is your opinion on using a coil heater especially under a UGF? Are there any benefits? regards Bill from Australia

41:56 The CheVette and the older Vette raised up with massive tires are 2 instant dream cars for me.

I have wanted to have more 'natural' decor like carved stones but before I knew you could grow plants I would get fake plants from the craft store. Much more cost efficient lol

36:25 but if you aren't breeding heavily or have fish that will eat each other quickly then they definitely don't need fed every day and could probably go well with 1 feeding a week with how much most people feed. Question?? Do you think most people in the hobby casually/for enjoyment feed too much and/or too often??

27:11 hey man I've worked in factories in the US long enough to know that American Made means nothing and sometimes scares me haha. It is the higher ups mostly tho. A lot of times especially when they get busy it's just as long as you can get parts out the door, ship them. A few people I have talked to have said they have seen quality go down dramatically in the past 10 years and mostly in the past 5. But that could just be the companies that are going to go down soon too.

Hmmmm, I thought titanium heaters are grounded back through their own titanium cases thus doing the same thing as a separate titanium probe. 🤔 Not sure where I heard this so I guess it’s more of a question than a statement. Also, controllers are a great idea. I use a Hydros controller for heater, PH reading, CO2 control, ATO, and lights. I realize most people won’t be doing that with their tanks but a standalone heater controller should be on every tank at minimum.

Got back into the hobby a few months ago. I saw the test strips and figured that was a good way to get me back in when it came to testing. For the most part, it seemed that the testing strips were giving me the information I needed and I acted accordingly. Unfortunately, for some reason, I can't keep cherry shrimp alive for a few weeks at most. I thought it was just because the cherry shrimp enclosure was completely different than a standard fish tank and it was solely because of my lack of experience/ knowledge of shrimp enclosures on my part. But because of this video, I sent for an API master kit like I used to use back in the day. I appreciate the information you gave in this video because it helped me realize that the test strips shouldn't be my go-to, but rather than a supplement to keeping my aquariums healthy. 👍🏽

How do I watch one of your videos, this morning, how you hate UGFs and then an hour later I watch another video how you say UGFs are awesome?

I had a couple of power outages last weekend. My Fluval 3.0 just didn't come back on until I went back to the app and just clicked on it. It instantly came back on and remembered where it was supposed to be.

Great video, thank you. You should remove that dirty tank that is hanging off the edge of that stand. It takes away from your professionalism and doesn't look great in your video background.

It's not the heat that's hard in hot climate it's the humidity that is the real fun part.

I'm very likely in the more extreme end of a bias towards "smart" or automated aquarium equipment. I find many aspects like monitoring devices, testing probes, and notifications to be of extreme value. But, it comes at a cost. Both the monetary value, and time spent maintaining that equipment such as re-pairing a device to the network or calibrating probes and dosing heads. Automating an aquarium doesn't remove good maintenance, it shifts that workload to other tasks. Use something like an auto-water-change and it greatly extends the duration between manual water changes in a safe and effective way. However, you now have to maintain the dosing system or pumps executing it, and ensure you have a clean water source when your not there. And it's no substitute for regular testing. But I'd rather maintain a pump, than carry buckets... And while you may be thinking "that's just more things that can break". It's only partly true. If you embrace automation, you can add redundancy which adds resiliency to the aquarium. Such as using probes to monitor and continually test the tank. Some of which can be configured to turn devices on and off, if desired. Or, simply alert you via text or email when something is wrong, so the user can act. Would you rather know your heater is stuck-on 10 minutes into it failing, or would you prefer to walk in and learn the hard way hours or days later? In this case, your trading minor additional maintenance for peace of mind and additional awareness. Finally, it's ideal for performing tasks when you're simply not there. Things like auto-feeders, lighting schedules, and dosing regimes can be detrimental if used improperly or misunderstood. But, if used well, they can add a level of consistency beyond a typical aquarist. Something as simple as a timer takes a mediocre aquarist, and makes that action very reliable. However, it's something that only make sense for hobbyists who want to invest resources into there aquarium. The more expensive an aquarium set-up becomes, the more attractive automation looks. And the fewer aquariums (or combined volumes of water) a hobbyist has, the more feasible the cost and set-up of such automation. Scaling automation on a connected (plumbed together) system is easy. But, scaling it on dozens of individual tanks is cost prohibitive. Personally, I don't have multiple tanks. I learned a long time ago, I have the personal motivation to take care of one aquarium very well. Or, I tend to care for multiple tanks mediocre or poorly. So, I've happily traded putting money into one modestly large aquarium, rather than dozens of smaller ones. In my scenario, automation makes perfect sense. It's safeguarding my only aquarium system, spreading out the overall maintenance on the system into more manageable bites, and I only have to purchase one set of equipment instead of trying to figure out how to cover multiple tanks with redundant purchases. In my case, I very much appreciate having multiple layers of automation through both Apps and an aquarium controller.

Now that I have used the full sized Fluval plant 3.0 and know that it has physical buttons and can be controlled by a smart plug if you app dies i don't have many issues with it until recently I had only used the Fluval nano plant that can only be controlled by the app so I had assumed the full ones were the same. thanks Bentley I probably wouldn't have looked any further into them without you talking about them being your favorite ( Would still prefer to have full physical controls and a app ) great video as always

The more moving parts, the more opportunity for failure. I personally don't want smart tech in my aquarium, things go wrong far too often for me to be comfortable with that.

Your videos are the first thing I watch

Bentley, what type of Angelfish are in the aquarium behind Robbz? Please? They are exquisite.

Look at how gorgeous those tanks are in the background! 😊

I feel like the cons for the Sump version can be addressed EXCEPT for the price. Firstly while you traditionally run them via airstones, they can also be run by Wave makers, which reduces the noise significantly. Secondly why yes they do no mechanical filtration by themselves, you cam combine them with another form of filtration to fix that. Most obvious of these is an UGF, a filter sock OR in Sumps with s bend designs (rather then drilled holes) the sponge required to stop the K1 escaping the fluidized chamber Really though you are correct...like ANY sump they are only for large tanks with either monster fish OR overstocked African cichlids.

Hi! Realize this is older video but I just came across it. Long term do you think the self cleaning function of the K1 would change the results in a significant manner after the bright water gets clogged? Thanks love your videos

Have you ever considered just loading a canister filter with clean lava rock and adding it to an established tank with fish? While I'm not a biologist, it just seems logical that the porosity of the lava rock would lend itself to provide the anoxic conditions that the bacteria you want to cultivate. Further, the constant flow provided by the canister filter would maintain the high nitrate environment the bacteria need to thrive. Back in the 1990s, there were some articles in the hobbyist magazines of the day discussing anoxic bacteria in aquaria and how they might be able to lower the nitrate levels. I believe that it was postulated that lava rocks in a canister filter might be a possible approach, but at the time cannisters filters were expensive and beyond the means of most aquarists. Also, in the 2000s, the deBryn filter (an air driven wet-dry filter mounted inside the aquarium) was mentioned for use in tanks with larger young killifish populations to maintain high water quality and decreasing the need for frequent water changes.

I just bought a 55 gallon fish thank And it came with this light. I do not have plants in it right now All I was planning on getting the plants in 2 weeks. The only thing I have in the fish tank is 6 small African in cichlids What lights do you recommend? This is my first fish tank.

They are actually the best I’ve used and I tried them all, especially when u have goldfish , high bio load , under gravel def out competes, I think they couldn’t make more money off them, once set up they last for years . 💭🧐

The only anoxic system I ever created was a reef tank. The main tank fed to a 29 gallon sump with about 12" of sand, including bristle worms for sand stirring. If I were to try to reproduce that with freshwater, I'd fill a 29 gallon tank with 12" of sand (or Safe T Zorb), add some porous rock on top (like reef rock), add a power head for flow, add some ramshorn and Malaysian trump snails, along with a few fish. No plants. Just feed and see if nitrate builds up.

Thank you for addressing algae bloom!