hello youtube in this video i'm going to talk about Asian method of filtration the under gravel
filter box my favorite filtration for caridina shrimp, I will explain to you why this method
is so good, talk about pros and cons and at the end of the video I'm going to show you how to
set up your shrink tank using this method stay tuned. About a year ago I came across one video
on youtube about one Asian shrimp shop with many tanks made the same way with only one small ugf
filter box. What I really like to see is how he set up his tanks all the tanks were built the same
way with just one underground filter box and a little amount of soil at the bottom of the tanks.
I liked that setup very much because it was very simple and I decided to do my tanks the same way.
Now I can say that i have much better results with this setup compared to traditional method
Thanks to Darick for all his info I will leave a link to that video in my description below
definitely check it out if you didn't see it. Okay let's talk about benefits of this method.
number 1. You will be using much less soil compared to traditional method with a thick
layer at the bottom. The water is constantly moving through the soil inside the filter box
and your soil works much harder to buffer the water. I'm only using one filter box in the tanks
up to 60 liters and one box is only holding 1.3 liter of soil. If you are using traditional method
you will use about 8 liters in the same tank, so with this method you will save a lot of soil
which does cost quite a lot. Number 2. You don't need to use soil at the bottom of your tongue
thick layer of soil is the biggest shrimp killer from my experience, shrimp are messy eaters and
when you feed them a lot of the food and also their faeces sink down into the soil creating
pockets full of ammonia the shrimp like to dig the soil and sometimes they release that ammonia
which can easily kill your shrimp especially your baby shrimp. this does not happen when you
are using very thin layer of the soil less than 5 mm thick. I've noticed a very high baby survival
rate once I started using this method. number 3. You don't ever need to restart your tank.
Normally if your soil lost buffering capacity over the time that's mean it's time to restart your
tank but in this method all you need to do is to remove the box from the tank, change the soil and
put the box back inside. You might need to cycle new soil for a few weeks if it's leaking ammonia.
You can simply run the filter in the bucket of water for a few weeks before putting it back
into the tank. This is why it's handy to have a spare box so you can cycle the soil first and
simply replace the old box with a fresh one. You can't do it if you have a built-in ugf filter and
this is why it is much much better to have a free standing box like this.
Number 4. This method provides your tank with plenty of oxygen because it's an air driven filter
Now let's talk about downsides of this method and only notice one downside. After a few months you
might notice that some dust from the soil settles down to the bottom of the box and might blow out
into the tank and cloud your water. It is not going to impact on your shrimps and only reduce
your visibility. You can try to siphon the dust out with silicone tubing also additional sponge
filter can help you to polish the water. This is why I have a sponge filters in all my tanks.
it's also beneficial for shrimps because sponge filter is a good source of biofilm.
You probably noticed that some breeders like to add some media and sponges at the bottom of the
ugf box but I personally don't do this because you lose a lot of space and it will reduce the
amount of soil you can fit inside your box. The shrimps have very little bio load and you
don't need to use media at all. If you want to use the media it's better to run another
filter like hang on filter or canister filter you need to remember that the main function of this
filtration is to buffer your water and lower your PH, sometimes I only add thin sponge at
the bottom just to stop small particles of the soil getting to the bottom part of the filter.
I wouldn't recommend putting fine sponges because it will clog very fast and will reduce the flow
instead you can add a sponge filter into your tank.
okay now I'm going to demonstrate you how easy to setup a tank using this method.
okay i'm gonna demonstrate how to set up this filter, so all you need is the acrylic cube
roughly 10 by 15 by 15 centimeters, you can buy this online and i bought this one on ebay from one
seller who can make them custom made so you just need to tell them the sizes and they can make it
for you and it's not very expensive. this cube cost me around 14 euro. Also you need a bottom
part it's like a plastic grill which you can also buy on ebay and you need a air lifter
extendable tube with air stone and then all you need to do is just put this inside
and attach this tube. so the best way I think for me is to
to put it in the corner, so what i do is just to glue it in the corner like this with a super
glue and then i cut around and then leave it like this. You can also put a sponge but make sure the
sponge is not too fine because fine sponge will clog very fast. so if you have a little gaps and
you don't want the soil to get inside and go on to the bottom you can put this one on top.
like this so this sponge will stop the the soil to get in to the bottom part
yeah okay so let's see what Darick sent to me.
This is the special made filter. you can see it's fitting very very tight so no gaps around and he
even cut the corners like this you see so it's very good because you don't need to put the
sponge. You just can put the soil straight on top of it. It has a little tube which you can remove
and it's extendable it's not very long. it's not good for long (tall) tanks but
for for medium tanks it's okay and it has a plastic air stone at the bottom.
very well made it didn't cost a lot it's maybe 10 euros for all set including pipe and including the
the bottom grill including this air lifter, but the problem is because the this guy is located in
uh in Singapore delivery cost me a lot so I pay a lot of money for delivery but
you can see it's a nice logo here 'Shrimp Affair' you can see the link down below.
You can see his shop (if you click the link) he running a lot of tanks with the same filters.
the same filter like this. so this is for demonstration yeah this tank for demonstration.
i'm gonna set up set it up and and show you step by step how to do it so yeah move this away first
yeah i'm gonna use this soil
and this is very good soil if you're in uk you can get it on eBay and it does what
it says well that's a noisy bird. okay so it's make your ph 5.5 and it does what it says
it keep your PH quite low about 5.5 - 5.7. I really like this soil and it's
not breaking very easy like Amazonia. it stays like this for a long time.
so let's fill this box
okay you see that a little bit of soil coming to the bottom but that's not a big deal.
that's not a big problem so all you need to do is put it in a tank, this is quite small tank
is just for demonstration, and then you need to put a little bit on the bottom of the tank
it might be too much, but you've got the point so you need to have a little bit of soil just for
decoration, for for better look i think, this soil doesn't do much
just to stop your shrimps to be very slippery on the glass and also just for look,
for better look that's all you need to do, so that's it. so this is simple setup
okay let's fill this with water and switch on the pump.
okay we filled it with water and now let's switch on on the pump.
here you go. so this is example for you. it's very simple to set up all you need to do is just
to fill the box with the soil put a little bit soil in the bottom and start cycling your tanks.
that's all you need to do! thank you for watching this video, I hope it was helpful for you.
please leave me a comment and let me know what do you think about this method
and don't forget to subscribe to my channel! happy shrimp keeping and see you next time!