Increase pump pressure

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Ok, so I've setup my lab (aka garage ) for raising dendronephthya. I have various water pumps ac/dc type. Can I put some in series to increase pressure to move more water. Please help. Many thanks

 

[pluikens]

Yes, you can. When two (or more) pumps are arranged in serial their resulting pump performance curve is obtained by adding their heads at the same flow rate. More info available here: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/pumps-parallel-serial-d_636.html

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Many thanks

 

[Chuk]

That eng toolbox article really only applies to cases where you have 2 or more of the same pump. If you have different pumps you can end up with surging and stalling flow or you can end up with less head than you started with because you end up free spinning the second pump which is not good for the pumps or the pipes for that matter.
I had this happen at a power plant one time with 2 identical pumps in series but they were inadvertently running at significantly different speeds. We ended up smoking the pump seals because we basically cavitated the second pump. Pump affinity laws are law for a reason.