Plumbing Multiple Tanks

[Noah's Shark]

Good evening,
I hope everyone is doing well is this time of disarray. I am thinking of beginning a rather daring project of setting up a breeding system in my basement and would like to link all of the tanks together on one sump. I'm not afraid of drilling aquariums, and I have bought nothing yet so I am open to all suggestions. The one catch is that this breeding system will be for freshwater fish rather than my beloved saltwater simply because I don't have the ability to operate more than my current saltwater setups (yet). This being said, I have some ideas about the size and number of aquariums I will be needing.
(2) 70+ gallon tanks
(2) 29-40 gallon tanks
(2) 20 gallon tanks
(1) 60 gallon tank
I am also wondering if one sump will be enough or even advisable. Perhaps two sumps? Will even that be enough to do simple tasks such as heating such a large amount of water? Again, it's freshwater so I don't really need a skimmer or algae reactor so it's a bit easier. I could possible add more 10-20 gallon tanks to act as heating stages/biological filtration along the way. Please let me know what you think.
Thank you and have a wonderful day.

 

[StatelineReefer]

A friend of mine has his freshwater system plumbed to a kiddie pool 6'x2', his tanks circle the pool so that he doesn't have any plumbing to trip over, and he can walk around the outside and tend to the fish.

Naturally this isn't advised if you have PH dependent fish, but for the vast majority, it works.

 

[Noah's Shark]

A friend of mine has his freshwater system plumbed to a kiddie pool 6'x2', his tanks circle the pool so that he doesn't have any plumbing to trip over, and he can walk around the outside and tend to the fish.

Naturally this isn't advised if you have PH dependent fish, but for the vast majority, it works.

I apologize for asking what might seem a rather basic question, but why would it not work for PH dependent fish?

 

[StatelineReefer]

I apologize for asking what might seem a rather basic question, but why would it not work for PH dependent fish?

Common source water, so if you had cichlids that needed a ph of 7.7 (Malawai) and cichlids that needed a PH of 7.3 (Tanganyika) to induce breeding, it would be more difficult to get them to 'perform'...

Now those who have bred Cichlids know that they'll do just fine no matter what, but the health and lifecycle of some freshwater fish very much depends on the PH and DKH of their original source water. As long as you can find a happy medium that the fish will thrive in, it isn't an issue, but some people/tanks never find that common medium, and thus have to have sumps with dedicated PH and DKH buffers.

 

[Noah's Shark]

Common source water, so if you had cichlids that needed a ph of 7.7 (Malawai) and cichlids that needed a PH of 7.3 (Tanganyika) to induce breeding, it would be more difficult to get them to 'perform'...

Ah, I understand now, thank you. I'm planning on only keeping one type of fish in this setup so that should reduce this problem's impact.

 

[Noah's Shark]

Does anyone else have any ideas as to how I might go about doing this?

 

[StatelineReefer]

What I would personally do is use a pool like this one.

Robot or human?

www.walmart.com

Arrange my tanks in a U or L shape around it. Use whatever racking or stand you prefer, but you are going to want two or three return pumps. This is mostly for head pressure.

Make a PVC return that accomodates each tank, plumb it as one piece with unions and shut-off valves that allow you to take an entire tank out of circulation while still allowing the rest of the system to flow.

Run the overflows or drains to the edge of the pool, make sure the bottom of the drains are halfway below the waterline, and come out horizontal to the surface of the water, this will increase gas transfer and oxygenate the water.