Multiple Aquarium Filter

[clayt101]

Instead of building an aquarium, I am thinking of putting 3 20 gallon aquariums side by side (not length wise). Each aquarium would hold ~ 3 fish. Anyone know of a way to hook up a large filter on 3 aquariums. I would prefer to only use 1 filter so that all of the water will mix together, so that it would be more like 1 60 gallon aquarium.
Thanks,
Clay

 

[OrionGirl]

Couple of ways, all involving a sump. You can put the filtration within the sump, plumb overflows from each tank into the overflow, with a return to each tank. Alternately (though not as good) would be to have an overflow from the end tanks to the sump, and a return to the middle tank with overflow tubes connecting it to the end tanks. With this, the water comes into the middle tank readily, and works it's way into the end tanks. The problem is matching speeds, and getting enough water movement to provide clean water to the end tanks (ie, turnover).

I'd just get three filters, personally, since then you don't have to worry about disease and such.

 

[Sumpin'fishy]

To be honest I don't think there would be much problem using a decent sized canister filter. Just line up the 3 tanks side by side and place the intake of the canister in one of the end tanks, and the exit jet in the other end tank. Just place decent sized "U" shaped syphon tubes connecting the three tanks. You can place prefilter foams (or AC 500 sponges) over each end of the syphon tubes. Just make sure the syphon tubes extend down at least 3/4 of the tank depth, so you can do decent sized water changes without loosing syphon. I have been tossing around the idea of doing this with my breeding setup. Just remember that canisters need to be about 2 to 4 feet below the top of the tanks for proper flow. It seems to me this would work with little problem, but sometimes practice doesn't meet theory!