Can we use a dosing pump to connect a small tank to a large one?

[vanguard]

My wife and I have a 150 gallon SPS dominate system that's doing well. We were thinking of adding a 10 gallon tank with tiny fish and low light/flow corals that wouldn't do well in the big SPS tank.

I thought it would be low maintenance if instead of doing filtration I just used dosing pumps to move ~30 gallons a day between the tanks. I haven't heard of anybody else using a dosing pump and depending on the exchange with the larger system to manage filtration issues.

Is this a good or bad idea?

 

[Biokabe]

Dosing pumps aren't really designed to move that volume of water continuously. Neptune's new dosing pump can only manage 25ml/min per head, so if you were to get one of those you'd be able to move, at most, 72 liters of water, or about 18 gallons. And one of those pumps will set you back about $350. There are probably other dosing pumps for cheaper, but none of them are really going to do what you want them to.

Two better options would be either to get an AIO 10g tank, or to plumb the 10g directly into your sump, using either a t-fitting to split the flow from your return pump into the smaller tank, or just adding a smaller return pump specifically for the smaller tank. Personally I'd go with the AIO unless you're planning on having the 10g sit right next to the larger tank; it's more flexible, and the cost of a decent AIO isn't terribly outrageous.

 

[vanguard]

I was actually looking at that dosing pump. It says it does 250ml/min, not 25. Also, it's rated for 30 gal a day.

Still, there is probably a good reason nobody else does it this way.

My source: https://www.neptunesystems.com/dos/

 

[DrMMI]

I'm currently using two dos to do water changes from my display to my coral qt and then from the coral qt down the drain. I did it so the parameters would match but alk, nitrate, and phosphate aren't. I think algae build up in the qt has something to do with it.