Tank Wall - 1 Sump for 3 Tanks

[James0816]

I'm now toying with the idear of putting three tanks in my rec room wall instead of one....just a thought at the moment. However, I have been trying to draw up a design for the plumbing. Here's my first revision of it. Any of you out here with sump and overflow experience, I appreciate your feedback on it.

Thx.

[Derringer]

If something goes wrong in one tank and all three could be affected ...

[mellowvision]

yeah. sounds ideal unless anything goes wrong... for instance, I have an algae problem in one of my tanks... but I've been spreading it around with my tools and net... pia

[TEL]

as long as you do your reguler maintance it should be ok

[Sploke]

I'm planning on something similar that will run about 500gal worth of tanks. I'm either going to have HOB overflows or drill my tanks, and use Y and T connectors so everything dumps into a sump ending in probably 2 or 3" PVC.

[rsw686]

You can do this no problem. Go look at any fish store and notice they have one sump for multiple tanks. Increases the water volume and stability.

Why all the bioballs? Why not make that a fuge section?

[Sploke]

In a freshwater filter you want material like bioballs for maximum surface area for biofiltration. You could, however, put a light over it and it could double as a veggie filter as well, to keep nitrates low.

[rsw686]

In a freshwater filter you want material like bioballs for maximum surface area for biofiltration. You could, however, put a light over it and it could double as a veggie filter as well, to keep nitrates low.

Haha yeah I got myself confused and was thinking this was a marine topic.

[JustLooking]

Just remember that all of the overflows have to be @ the same hieght...

If not it will not work.

[rsw686]

Just remember that all of the overflows have to be @ the same hieght...

If not it will not work.

Why would they need to be at the same height? The water will only overflow down the drain as much water as you put in. You can put the tanks anyway you want as long as the sump is below them all.

[vidiots]

Make sure you put a small hole in the return lines just above the water level of the top tanks as a syphon break, so that water can't syphon back to the sump thru your pumps if you loose power to the pumps. In my tank the hole is pointed toward the side of the tank and any water that leaks out the hole while the pump is on quiety runs down the inside of the tank wall.

I managed to signifigantly silence the sound of running water and bubbling in my sump. The running water sound is eliminated by having the incomming water to the sump go below the water surface to the bottom of the sump at a 45 degree angle using a PVC pipe. The bubbling noise is eliminated by allowing the air to escape your PVC pipe near the water surface. I put a PVC "Y" in my 45° pipe so that the other side of the Y leads back up to the surface. The water follows the lower branch and the air follows the upper branch. I used vinyl hose to connect between the tanks which came down at an angle instead of straight down.

Here is a picture showing my orgional plumbing on the right and my improved quieter plumbing on the left.

Sump Plumbing.JPG (http://users.adelphia.net/~vidiots/SumpPlumbing.JPG)

[James0816]

Why would all the overflows need to be the same height? That is rather interesting. I'm not a plumber but that could drastically change things especially if the two smaller tanks are on a higher level than the main display.

I do plan on having small holes on the return to break the syphon in the event of a failure. The sump of course would be large enough to handle the back flow from the three tanks.

I was also toying with the idea of a planted display "window" so to speak. But that would require a bigger sump tank. Still a thought. I also thought about in the section of the sump after the bio balls, using some sort of moss to put up the sides and such. This would add yet another layer of filtration to it as well as put back some nutrients and O2 going back to the tanks.

I think I dream too big. ;o)

[rsw686]

Why would all the overflows need to be the same height? That is rather interesting. I'm not a plumber but that could drastically change things especially if the two smaller tanks are on a higher level than the main display.

You don't need the overflows at the same height. That poster must be thinking something else. Go look at any fish store and see for yourself.

The way a tank with overflow works is no water drains out until water is pumped into the tank.

So lets say you just setup multiple tanks at different heights and filled them with water. They all will stay filled. Now hook up the plumbing and the return pump will pump water into each tank. The amount of water pumping in will displace that same amount of water which will fall over the overflow and down the drain back to the sump.

[legendaryfrog]

I wouldnt bother with such a complicated setup. Instead, I would save the sump for only the 100g, and use regular HOB filters for the 2 smaller tanks.

[loaches r cool]

I'd think with a large enough sump adding a couple smaller tank to it wouldnt be a big deal at all.