connected tanks

Devaji · Jan 26, 2020

Wantsomemora Acrapora said:
This setup is no different than 1 mixed reef, except you get to have a sand bed in the lps tank with reduced flow; the idea, or at least my idea is to have both types of tanks without compromising on light, flow, ect...all in the same footprint (except the sump) because i have space limitations..

cool I am excited to see this come together. a few years ago I have a 75 and the plan was to connect a 40B Macro display fuge right next to it but we moved before I got that up .

Devaji · Jan 26, 2020

ScottB said:
If I had it to do all over again from scratch, I might have considered a custom built 12 foot shallow raceway frag tank with a closed loop flow system and one enormous sump. But I kinda got into the frag stuff incrementally. Started with a 40B and a 20G sump, added an 80 shallow, then another 40G sump and another 80 shallow to reach 260G volume.

But this allows me to run 2 SPS (high light, high flow) tanks and one smaller LPS/SPS quarantine all on one water system and APEX system. Yeah, I have a lot of wiring and extra equipment, but that redundancy has been helpful a few times.

A picture of the whole, the "bridge" and the flow diagram.

oh may I would love a 12' tank I keep dreaming about a butterfly, angel and tank tank...someday.
totally make since how and why you did it the way you did. looks like you have a frag problem I know a tank you could add em too

Wantsomemora Acrapora · Jan 27, 2020

Frey said:
Make sure you use check valves, and i also tested the back flow into the sump a few times to make sure it would handle it. I also put ball valves on ever return and drain in case of an emergency so i could shut everything down from everywhere if i needed too. It fills back up about 1.5" below the top of the sump. Also need to remember to turn your skimmer off before shutting down feed pumps and i have it on 15 min delay with apex if power is lost to give the sump plenty of time to empty to normal level but it only takes about a min.

That looks absolutely complicated. I'm gonna have to do some diagramming. Great pointers, thank you.

maroun.c said:
As long as they all feed in the sump and that sump can handle.the backsyphone is flownisnturned off without flooding u will be ok. Mine was designed for 3 tanks and I added a small cube after and it could handle it but water is very close to the top. As I'm adding 2 more tanks I just decided to add one more sump at same height as mine and to connect to my sump. I can use that sump as an additional tank, or more sump space or just a frag tank.

With all those tanks how do you handle humidity?

maroun.c · Jan 27, 2020

5 inch turbine and few small windows (home.is on a cliff so basement is vented from2 sides and a dehumidifier and periodic run of exhaust fan in winter.