undergravel filter

[sweetpea4044]

can anyone tell me if it safe to remove my ugf. I have a 120 gallon tank that has been up a couple of years, I have just put a wet/dry in. I have a aquaclear 500 that has been on it all the time my ugf was for a 55 gallon so it is only half way of my tank, I want to no if it is safe to take out half now and half in a couple weeks. Thanks sweetpea4044

 

[saltfin]

sweetpea4044
That's what I'm about to do. I'm 75g FOWLR with a couple simple polyps. I'm tired of looking at cc and sand looks great. The UGF would someday develope a possible case for nitrates and I don't want to use it with the sand nor look at the 1" tubes anymore. I think to advance getting rid of them is the best solution from what I've been reading here. I'd like to ease into reef as time passes. At the moment I'm culturing some aragonite sand just prior to switchover. I'll add a bag of bacteria sand aswell. My tank has been set up 3 yrs. It's a bummer to totally redo butcha gotta do it sometime

 

[beaslbob]

I would wait until you can turn the UGF for a day without bump ups in ammonia. Make sure the wet/dry has bacteria built up.
Or at least put some of the ugf substrait in the wet/dry.
But then I would also be tempted to leave the ugf there. my calcium rose from 250-300 to ~ 400ppm when I added crushed oyster shells to my filter box in my sump. I suspect that is very similiar to the buffering a UGF provides.