Two tanks, one sump - who's doing it?

[pirate2876]

The other tank is through the wall.

 

[renato120]

I run a 120g and a 30g shallow tank all connect to a 40g breader sump under my 120g.
Very easy to setup! Make sure you have a skimmer big enough, and space for a second return pump in the sump area.

 

[FlyinBryan]

I'm doing it!! A 150g & 35g display a 150 frag and a 75g sump.

It's not fully plumped and I have a couple kinks to work out but it's just about done!

 

[JasPR]

I'm running a 125 with a 20-gallon display fuge, both connected to a sump. Not sure if that's what you're looking for but it's essentially what you talking about. The 20-gallon can be disconnected/isolated from the main system by simply closing the feeder line.

No, but I have ONE TANK and TWO SUMPS! LOLs

 

[Susan Edwards]

I have a red sea 66 gal AIO and a 37 gal display refugium on it's own stand and plan to plumb them together.

 

[Shaun Sweeney]

Wish mine were that neat ...

 

[Joe Heavy]

Search hasn't shown much, but do we have any members running multiple tanks off of a larger, shared sump?

I'm in the planning stages of a pretty big upgrade hopefully this fall and seriously considering a shared sump to not only simplify dosing and equipment requirements, but provide a very stable water volume for a nano tank.

Main tank would be a ~130 gallon peninsula tank and planning for a ~50 gallon nano as well. I realise that most of the danger is if one tank goes, the other will too but the increased water quality versus what would be made available traditionally to small nano tank should be worth the risk.

Looking for some examples!

Following I have a big basement and display tank is upstairs with sump in basement. I want a trigger fish tank in basement and wonder if the upstairs display is corals and a few reef fish the trigger tank can maybe help with nutrients? I know they can be messy fish but love their dog like behavior and would love to have them also they are isolated from display and sump by aquarium but sharing the same bioload due to being on same system. Anyone chime in?

 

[Greg Gdowski]

Restarting this thread. Interested in plumbing two tanks together through a common sump in the basement. The tanks are around 40ft apart on the first floor.

 

[Norman's_Tank]

Timing couldn't be more perfect. Was just talking to my wife about wanting a big display with a sump and frag tank on the other side of the wall. I'm hoping to see more of everyone's ideas and/or current practices

 

[AlexG]

I saw this thread pop up on my alert. It took me back in time a bit as my system was still under construction. I run 2 displays together along with 2 sump tanks and a refugium tank. I will be adding a frag tank to the mix as well in the next few months. I really like having everything tied together as one big system. Maintaining equipment for a single system over multiple systems is much easier than having to maintain equipment for multiple systems. The one thing I recommend when you design a system with multiple displays is to ensure if you turn your pumps off that there is enough sump capacity available to prevent the sump from overflowing. Never trust a check valve to prevent that from happening.

 

[Norman's_Tank]

Great call on the sump capacity. It seems like the true benefits of such a system come down to the engineering and design of the system.

ideally, a setup that allows me to disconnect any one of the tanks from the system would be best. I guess I should start penciling a few things out to see if the proposal gets approved by quality control aka wife

 

[Greg Gdowski]

Makes a lot of sense. My main concern is the amount of power needed to move water across larger distances. It is great to have them all tied together. I just wonder if anyone has come up with an efficient way for moving water to and from a common sump in a basement. Or, is everyone simply using big AC pumps to serve multiple tanks. Tanks close together is easy... it is the tank systems that are separated by 30 feet that give me pause.

 

[Kyl]

Was wondering why I had a bunch of notifications for this haha. Well my original plan hasn't happened yet, but I still hope eventually doing this with a larger main display. Distance wise I have no idea how to help in that regard, 40 feet is quite a challenge. The idea with all of this was to have the peninsula as a room divider, and (my current DT) serve as a nano fish suitable tank against the wall in decently close proximity. No remote sumps or fish rooms, so everything would route under the peninsula with the overflow / return piping to / from the wall tank.

 

[AlexG]

Makes a lot of sense. My main concern is the amount of power needed to move water across larger distances. It is great to have them all tied together. I just wonder if anyone has come up with an efficient way for moving water to and from a common sump in a basement. Or, is everyone simply using big AC pumps to serve multiple tanks. Tanks close together is easy... it is the tank systems that are separated by 30 feet that give me pause.

I run my system two different ways with return pumps. I run a reeflo hammerhead to run returns for the display tanks and eventually my frag tank. My refugium is running off of a separate DC pump. I gravity feed my skimmer rather than having a separate feed pump which saves the need for another pump. Its possible to use gravity to feed multiple tanks rather than larger or multiple return pumps. If there is a large distance between tanks the biggest challenge to overcome is the head pressure . I run my return to the ceiling and then I sloped the pumping down slightly towards the vertical return lines going into the tanks. This helps with drainage when the return pump is off along with putting gravity on my side for the long lateral run of the return plumbing.

 

[markfmvl]

I have three tanks on a common sump in my fish room. Of course they are all close together and the overflows run by gravity to the sump. A basement sump you would have about 13 feet of head pressure. That sounds like a pretty good sized pump.

 

[Shaun Sweeney]

I have two 140 gallon 1/2 pipe DT's and two smaller acclimation tanks on my main floor. In the basement, I have a main sump, expanded by a secondary sump that relies on 2 water bridges and a fuge. There are two pumps pushing in tandem but the system can run on a single pump. I'd guess about a 10' head.

 

[maroun.c]

I run my 400G DT at home and 4 other tanks in basement all connected to same sump. Sump is big enough to accommodate all tanks when return is turned off that is key. I have a big 3/4Hp Hayward pump to push water up to DT and another 3000gph in sump pump to supply the 4 tanks in the basement. 4 tanks in the basement are a Nano cube, 2 frag tanks and one tank that I wanted to run in basement but have been using as frag tank still.
Of course minimizes the hassle of multiple dosing, testing, chilling and heating and also gives much more water stability sue to the larger volume (am at around 800G) total system volume. However equipment does get pricey at that scale and suboptimal equipment fails faster when in larger scale system. Much more detailed info in my build thread.

 

[Fugeb4skim]

I have a trigger system sapphire 39 that has never seen water. Wife is kicking me out of the hobby.. 400

 

[MaxFlow]

How do you guys go about connecting multiple overflows to one sump? Do you keep each return line separate, or merge them into one, bigger diameter pipe?

 

[Kfactor]

Just look at fishofhex he has 2 40 ish gallons that he plumbed in to his 300