two tanks 1 common sump?

[david campbell]

i love this idea.. but not sure how to pull it off.. heres the floor plan of a 1 story home, the existing two reef tank locations. last pic shows the only idea i can come up with at the moment. opinions welcome on common sump loaction or my proposed plan. thanks

specs----

the dos -
1/4" tubing
30g max daily
Vertically: Maximum of 24ft in any combination.
Horizontally: Maximum of 100ft.
the x2sr -
3/8" tubing
flow: 900mL per minute +
Max Head Pressure: 32 ft

 

[All_talk]

Well it’s a non traditional idea, that’s for sure. I don’t think you will find many people with experience in something like this, myself included, so advice will be limited.

I see several possible issues, but the glaring one is the extremely low flow/turnover rate. Even low turnover sump systems will be 1 or 2 times the tank volume each hour, what you are proposing would be a fraction of that. I don’t think you will get any effective filtration and the parameters between the 3 water volumes will be quite different.

What are you hoping to accomplish with this sump system?

 

[david campbell]

yeah there are people doing this..mixing tank water between several tanks housed in multiple rooms using pumps instead of one sump...hard to find them tho... for every 10 people that are confused by this i find 1-2 that say "oh yeah im doing that"..i prefer the single sump over the pumps but i see no way to do this.

the goal is to have one body of water in two tanks for easy moitering.. better filtration is not the goal. turn over rate is not important. each sump would keep its on return line into its display.

think of it as a large water mixing setup.. so when i or the trident tests a parm. or i dose something i know its the same in both tanks, because its all the same water.

think of the proposed pumps (have not desided on which one) i shown, as nothing more than a glorifed stand mixer or an eletric water bridge. lol

if you have multiple tanks then i would be nice to test once. instead of testing each and every tank. i prefer one no3 test for example over doing it three time. is also the goal

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

If anything, I'd plumb the 30g into the 150g's sump. It can be done, and I'd run it under the house. Gravity drain issues will need to be addressed, thus you have to make sure the 30g display is absolutely higher than the top (entry point) of the 150g sump.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Or you could run the 30g sumpless and do awc with the 150g water as it looks like you are proposing.

 

[All_talk]

the goal is to have one body of water in two tanks for easy moitering.. better filtration is not the goal. turn over rate is not important each sump would keep its on return line into its display. think of it as a large water mixing setup.. so when i or the trident tests a parm. i know its the same in both tanks. cause its all the same water.

If that the case, why have the third sump at all, just pump water back and forth between the two tanks?

 

[exnisstech]

the goal is to have one body of water in two tanks for easy moitering.. better filtration is not the goal. turn over rate is not important each sump would keep its on return line into its display. think of it as a large water mixing setup.. so when i or the trident tests a parm. i know its the same in both tanks. cause its all the same water.

Don't forget that any issues like disease, chemistry imbalance etc will now affect both tanks at once. I combined two tanks 150g and 180g to a single sump but it was strictly for ease of maintenance and I placed the sump in the basement so I could stand up and work on things. It worked very well until velvet struck and then it struck both tanks at once.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Don't forget that any issues like disease, chemistry imbalance etc will now affect both tanks at once. I combined two tanks 150g and 180g to a single sump but it was strictly for ease of maintenance and I placed the sump in the basement so I could stand up and work on things. It worked very well until velvet struck and then it struck both tanks at once.

That's the huge downside of it. I considered combining sumps when I redid my flooring last year but didn't want the potential issues of disease knocking out both tanks.