Two display tanks one sump (reef, mangroves, sump) (1 Viewer)

[rparker2112]

So my reef display is in the livingroom. My sump is under the reef. My topoff reservoir is in my bedroon on the other side of the wall in a cabinet that my old tank was ontop of.

I was thinking of doing a remote mangrove forest for the bedroom with a deep sand bed ontop of the cabinet where my top off tank is. Any promblems I might run into? Any ideas or comments?

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[d2mini]

You need to figure out how to get water to the mangrove tank without using an additional pump so you are not balancing multiple pumps in the sump.
Maybe split the drain from the tank, if the mangrove tank sits south of you drain, then drain the mangrove tank to the sump.

Or, do what I do which is split the return from the sump to go to the DT and the mangrove tank. Then let the mangrove tank drain back to the sump.

This will all probably increase your evaporation rate.

Off the top of my head, anyway.

 

[rparker2112]

Could I use two pumps and have both tanks drain into the sump?

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[inigomontoya]

I am curious about the balancing between two pumps if the sump is large enough and the second tank and second pump are small enough. I am going to plumb in a second frag tank as well and was debating between using a real small pump as return or to tap into my existing return plumbing. Access is my problem (getting to the existing plumbing), this is the first time I have heard of two pumps or balancing being an issue and want to know what to look out for.

 

[d2mini]

You just have to remember that the more pumps you introduce, the more difficult the balancing act and the more potential for mishap from pump failure or whatever.
And you'll have two pumps trying to empty your sump. Both will have to be tuned perfectly.

 

[rparker2112]

Heres what I'm thinking.....pic...reef is 40 gallon, sump is 20 gallon, ato and mangroves will be both 10 gallons.

If one pump is pumping at xxx gph, and secound is at xxx gph, wouldn't each overflow be flowing the same amount that's pumped in? And If one pump gets turned off, that tank would quit flowing while the other would still be pumping at the same rate.

Only thing I can think of is if one of the over flows gets clogged the tank will over flow very very badly.

I'm also thinking of running a dsb and mangroves in the sump. But I'd really like to see my mangroves.

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[d2mini]

Yup, that's exactly how i pictured it.
Like i said, it can be done that way, it's just introducing more opportunity for problems, IMHO.

In contrast, my system has been running for almost a year now on one pump and it's been real solid.
One pump to rule them all.

Here's a flow chart I did recently that shows the whole system, powered by one big pump.
(the reason the skimmer is called out separately is because i have it in it's own mini-sump that the DT drains into before going into the main sump)

 

[rparker2112]

Yea...I'm just gonna do them in my sump. Less promblems.

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