Plumbing 2 tanks and sumps together? HELP!

[Tigweldpro]

I have 2 tanks that sit side by side and want to plumb them together, is there a best fail safe way to do this?

I'm thinking 2 crossovers (pink lines) that drain from the high to low point in each sump, but its a bit of work drilling and installing 2 extra bulkheads into the sumps.....

Any input would be great.

 

[hafer12]

Elevate one sump higher, I would let gravity drain water from display overflow to frag tank return. Might have to add a inline pump of sorts. Frag tank drains to (IMO one single sump) or the sump that's elevated, then back to display sump. Good luck following what I just typed! Makes sense to me!! LOL

 

[Tigweldpro]

Elevate one sump higher, I would let gravity drain water from display overflow to frag tank return. Might have to add a inline pump of sorts. Frag tank drains to (IMO one single sump) or the sump that's elevated, then back to display sump. Good luck following what I just typed! Makes sense to me!! LOL

And if the line from high sump to low sump gets plugged off....

 

[hafer12]

Run two drains for redundancy

 

[Tigweldpro]

Run two drains for redundancy

Sound like more work and less reliable, Wheres all the plumbing gurus around here?

 

[lmm1967]

As soon as you have 2 pumps - you are asking for potential trouble.

I've run 2 display tanks with a shared sump with zero issues. Each display returned on opposite ends of the sump with the return pump in the middle section. Protein skimmer only needs to be on one side or the other. Single ATO etc. You need an oversize return pump, split the return line so it feeds both displays. You need a gate valve for each tank. Ran perfectly for well over a year. Never any issues.

I split them recently because somehow, someway - snails and crabs were actually able to get from one display to the other. The ONLY shared plumbing was the return pump - to this day I have no idea how fairly sizable Welk snails were able to get from one tank to the other - but they did.