[Hawkeye]

You can grow any plants you want. My first plant tank had all kinds of plants and it had a UGF. The more I got into growing plants the more I knew the UGF had to go. It was the maintenance. The gravel kept the NO3 levels high so it was a constant battle with algae. I would have to do the gravel suck thing once a month. I used powerheads to drive the UGF and I had 4-5 inches of gravel too. That could be why I had so much trouble with it.

Hawk

 

[Hawkeye]

I think what was the source of NO3 was a heavy fish load and over feeding. I never used root tabs in this tank as long as had an UGF. You don't have to use them because the ferts in the water column are pulled down to the roots of root feeding plants. I had a deep substrate in this tank. It seemed like every thing was pulled into the gravel and rotted there. The only think that would keep the NO3 down was gravel sucks once or twice per/month. I am not saying you can't grow plants Its just a pain. At lest it was for me. Some of my biggest Amazon Sword where grown in this tank. I had Cyrpts that reached the top on the tank (55gal). The roots ran all over the tank and became entangled in the UGF. I wish I had started off with a canister filter with Eco-Complete from the start. It would have saved me allot of time and aggravation.

Hawk

 

[Hawkeye]

I agree Cavan. When I changed over to a canister filter I left the UGF grids in the tank until the tank died.

Hawk