Taylor810
Community Member
I am building a frag system in my garage. Going to have four 50gal lowboy tanks plumbed into a 75 gallon sump and then one unconnected lowboy running on an HOB filter for quarantining new corals.
I am using metal shelving units and, for space saving purposes, am going to be stacking the tanks one ontop of another.
I want to cut down on how much new equipment I need to buy. Right now, I have a Jebao 6500 running one frag tank at 30% power. I figure that pump should have no problem running two return lines, and maybe even have a little left over for a manifold. But there's no way that pump could handle returns for four pumps at once.
Obviously, I could buy a bigger pump, but I don't really want to if I don't have to... I'd much rather save a couple hundred by using the pump I have, and reinvest that money into better lights or something. That's led me to this idea. (Return lines are blue, overflow lines are green)
The idea is that I would plumb the return lines into the two tanks on the top shelf. Those tanks on the top shelves would be for LPS and SPS colony growouts. The water from those tanks would then drain down into the tank below. Those lower tanks, since they'll probably be getting a bit more detritus and such, are going to be for my softies (zoas, mushrooms, leathers, and anemones). I would then have those lower tanks each drain into filter socks on opposite ends of the 75G sump.
I have seen plenty of people plumb their tanks like this. Is there any reason not to do it this way? If I have the water drain into those lower tanks, can I still add lockline to the bulkheads to direct the flow, or would that increase the risk of them getting clogged?
Or should I ditch the bulkheads and just have the drain lines empty out directly into the tanks? Is it worth it to add filter socks those lower tanks to capture detritus, or would that be redundant?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
I am using metal shelving units and, for space saving purposes, am going to be stacking the tanks one ontop of another.
I want to cut down on how much new equipment I need to buy. Right now, I have a Jebao 6500 running one frag tank at 30% power. I figure that pump should have no problem running two return lines, and maybe even have a little left over for a manifold. But there's no way that pump could handle returns for four pumps at once.
Obviously, I could buy a bigger pump, but I don't really want to if I don't have to... I'd much rather save a couple hundred by using the pump I have, and reinvest that money into better lights or something. That's led me to this idea. (Return lines are blue, overflow lines are green)
The idea is that I would plumb the return lines into the two tanks on the top shelf. Those tanks on the top shelves would be for LPS and SPS colony growouts. The water from those tanks would then drain down into the tank below. Those lower tanks, since they'll probably be getting a bit more detritus and such, are going to be for my softies (zoas, mushrooms, leathers, and anemones). I would then have those lower tanks each drain into filter socks on opposite ends of the 75G sump.
I have seen plenty of people plumb their tanks like this. Is there any reason not to do it this way? If I have the water drain into those lower tanks, can I still add lockline to the bulkheads to direct the flow, or would that increase the risk of them getting clogged?
Or should I ditch the bulkheads and just have the drain lines empty out directly into the tanks? Is it worth it to add filter socks those lower tanks to capture detritus, or would that be redundant?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
