I currently have a 55 gallon mixed reef and now its time to upgrade I decided to go with a 180 and use my 55 as a BTA tank. To make my life easier I wanted to plumb the tanks together so I would just have 1 large system. My 180 I got used and it came with a tigger systems 36 sump but I wanted to add a separate large refugium to handle whatever bioload I can through at it. So i got a 44g tank for the fuge and used the wet dry sump that came with the 44g as my Ato reservoir which I installed a float switch and programmed the Apex to shut off the ato and text me when its empty . I also installed a 40 breeder for use as a frag tank later down the road. I bought the rock used so I let it cure for around 3 months running GFO and doing water changes to pull out the phosphate from the rock. I also dossed live rock enhance and Microbactor7 to the rocks to help build the bacteria. I used Marco mortar to create the auqscape and prevent any moving of the rocks by inverts and fish (lesson learned). I made sure all my parameters where as close as possible I had to dose NO3 into the 180 to get it close P04 was close enough. And when I joined the 2 systems My corals in the 55 never skipped a beat. I am running 2 return pumps one pump runs the 55 and the frag tank, the second vectra M1 runs the 180 and I have it plumed for the future addition of another tank into the system. If I would have known how powerful the vectra pump was it could have easily powered the entire system. Total system volume should be right around 300 gallons taking into account for the rock and sand.
