Daisy Chaining tanks? (1 Viewer)

[majikmike9999]

Ok last night i was sitting here browsing the for sell ads and such and had a crazy idea i have been thinking about another tank, i started with a 29BC then jumped to a 330 gal reef. My wife originally wanted to move the BC upstairs to the bedroom and use it for a puffer, but then we decided it would be too small and also the idea of hauling buckets up the stairs every week wasn't so appealing, so we just sold it and figured that we would concentrate on the big tank. The big tank is actually easier than the BC because i have a saltwater mixing station chiller and ATO all plumbed in from outside so it is just a matter of operating a few valves and my water changes are done.

So what I am thinking is my living room is too full to add another tank it would just be trashy at this point as my current tank definately dominates the room. Just to the left of my tank is a wall and on the other side is our formal dining room which has been converted to the kids play/TV room. I was thinking that it would be relatively inexpensive to put a FOWLER tank in this room and try to plumb it to my existing tanks system with a pressure and return line through the wall? This would cover all filtration, temp. control, and water top off. and being a fowler setup i could get the lights pretty cheap.

The issues here that i can see of course are the increased bio load, the increased water volume in the event of an electrical outage, the plumbing, whether or not the longer horizontal run would effect the drain rate vs the return pump rate and the added load to the other equipment chiller, skimmer, etc.

So what do you guys think is this kind of setup just asking for trouble? Has anyone else done this and been successful? I have seen the fish rooms and such with something like this but my idea is just to plumb it back to my existing tanks sump.

Thanks in advance for any input

 

[jamesw]

I used to have a mangrove tank that I did this way and it was a lot of fun. One of my dual overflows flowed from the main tank to the mangrove tank, and from the mangrove tank back to the sump. I had a DSB, algaes and mangroves in the open-topped mangrove tank and I never had any water quality issues w/ either system.

Cheers
James

 

[flexrac]

heres my thought.
if you are adding a second tank to your system and connecting them together to save on equipment and such, which is smart. here is were the problem kicks in; you will be adding more bioload to your system, can it handle that? can the skimmer handle both tanks? thats a lot of water volume. since it's a fowler tank, i see no reason to bridge both tanks. it would be less hassle to keep them independent.
my 0.02 cents.

 

[flexrac]

by the way i have your first fish ready for when you want it. ( engineer goby, about 7-8 inches long)

 

[majikmike9999]

Thanks Felix,
No, the reason for connecting the two would be the convenience factor. My current tank is all but automated when it comes to water changes and ATO, plus it has the chiller as well so the temp is handled also.

At the moment my Bio load isn't that much considering the amount of LR I have plus the skimmer, i don't think it would be too much as I am only thinking of setting up something with maybe 40 -50 gallons, and probably a puffer and a couple other aggresive fish. I thought about doing it as a frag tank but i know i will have more luck with the wife if it has a puffer in it, she has been wanting one for a while.

I mentioned the idea to my wife yesterday and she didn't say no, I have to get her approval first since she is the one that has to mess with it when i travel out of town for work. So for now i think i may just keep a look out to see whats available second hand.

 

[flexrac]

yeah, i would do the puffer and maybe one more fish. keep the load low, hey a dwarf lionfish would be cool. honestly, i would have done it backwards.
since you are always away, i would do a fowler with the big tank, allowing you to get cool fish like the angels and such, then do a reef in a 75, or a cube tank, something with depth.