many tanks, one filter, new idea?

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sschind

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May 7, 2008
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Someone else has a thread going about sumps and multiple tanks and how to set up the returns and rather than hijack that thread I thought I would come here with my idea. I'm not sure if this would work so I would like some feedback.

Here is what I want to do. I would like to set up a series of 15 and 20 gallon tanks. I would like to have them drilled an all drain into a sump for a larger system and to make water changes easier. I know that having one return pump would require different return lines and different adjustments to each line, especially since the tanks would be on 3 different levels and this can get confusing, I also know that individual pumps would get pretty costly and cluttered since I am thinking of perhaps 15 tanks in the system.

Here is my idea. Since the water flowing out of the tanks will be equal to the amount of water flowing into the tanks I thought that if I could do this it might work out. have all 15 tanks drain into one lower level sump. In this sump I would have the filter, heater, return pump etc. Instead of having the return pump return water to each tank individually it would pump water to a second reservoir positioned above the tanks. This reservoir would have 15 individual bulkheads each with its own line leading down into one of the display tanks. The return flow to each tank would be gravity fed. A larger overflow bulkhead would be provided to drain any excess water from the upper sump to the lower sump if for some reason a bunch of the tank siphons got plugged. I could even do two lines to each tank maybe one set a bit higher in the upper reservoir to prevent this if needed. I could put in large enough return lines so I could put a ball valve on each one to regulate the flow if I needed to or to shut it off all together if I needed to.

Can anyone see any potential problems with this sort of setup. Any comments would be welcome.
 

sschind

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May 7, 2008
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OK, not sure if I can edit but one of my customers just gave me a different idea. Instead of an overhead reservoir how about an overhead 4" or 6" pvc bulkhead with the returns lines running off it. One end could be hooked up to the return pump and the other end could be returned to the sump with a ball valve to allow for the adjustment of pressure in the bulkhead and return lines.

I'm not sure of the effect of restricting the flow after the pump but as long as you don't crank it down too much it shouldn't create that much back pressure on the pump. I've heard that it was OK to do but you didn't want to restrict the flow before the pump.

Like before, comment are welcome.
 

SchizotypalVamp

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Mar 18, 2008
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I think it's cool, and I honestly would like to set up a system like that later on. However, there are two issues:

If one tank has a disease, every tank has a disease

You can't have tanks with different water quality
 

Notophthalmus

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Mar 4, 2008
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I think a lot of aquaculturists use similar systems. You might try contacting some of them to see if they will share their plans or let you tour their facilities; no sense re-inventing the wheel!
 

sschind

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May 7, 2008
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Schizo- Yeah the disease thing is an issue but this would be for a breeder system so I would only be putting in fish that had been in quarantine. I was also considering a UV sterilizer. They would also be all lake Tanganyika fish so water parameters would be the same.

Notho- you are probably right. I've never seen the overhead method before though and it just seems so much simpler to to let the water flow back down into the tanks from one reservoir rather than to pump it back up into each one individually.

I'll keep searching.
 

Rbishop

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Sounds like it would work. Can you sketch something out and post it?
 

OldMan47

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Jan 1, 2008
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I would try a direct system where you pipe the water from the pump to a header system and then have individual valves on each tank. You could adjust each to balance out the flow and as long as no one tank got too much flow, the overflows would control the levels in the individual tanks. The surge volume for the whole system would be in the sump where the filter and heater were located. The down side to this, as others have said, is that a problem in one tank could quickly become a problem in all of them. That is where the individual valves would come in handy. If you shut off the flow to one tank it is no longer an active part of the system. Use a corner filter or submerged filter on that tank and it becomes a stand alone that can be treated before returning it to work with the rest of the system. To be ready for isolating a tank, just run a submerged filter on the sump all the time so the filter stays cycled.
 
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