I am planning to stick two same size acrylic tank (10 gallons) together. One will be a divided into part sump/fuge and the other will ge the display tank. What is the best method to circulate the water between these two tanks? I am particularly worried about overflowing one tank if a pump breaks...this is assuming that I use pumps to move water between the tanks.
Dual 10G Back-to-Back Acrylic Tanks
- Thread starter gussy
- Start date
You should never, never, never try to use two pumps moving against each other to move water. One of them will always become, clogged, break an impeller, burn out it's motor, etc... and the other one will be able to continue pumping normally and flood the other area. The easiest thing for you to do is have a normal u-tube overflow from the display to your 'sump' and have the return pump over the top back into your display. You could also drill both tanks, so you're overflow isn't as unsightly. Personally I'd drill them because it should be easy since they're both acrylic. (10g glass tanks are made with thinner glass and they break pretty easily while being drilled.)
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A 1" bulkhead will normally allow approx 600gph to flow through it with no problems. So you can have a return pump that will pump up to that ammount with little or no issues. On a 10g tank, it would be easy to get a 600-700gph pump in your sump, split the return line with a SCWD, and just run lockline over the top of the display, or drill two return holes with 3/4inch bulkheads with lockline to direct the return flow however you'd like it. I personally am not a big fan of the SCWD's because of reliability issues. Many folks have had them break down because they don't handle any kind of detritus well, but that problem can be fixed by just making sure there is little possiblity of detritus in the return pump area of your sump. Even if you didn't use a SCWD and just split your return line the split will cut down some of the flow of your pump. You can also put a ball valve before or after the splits to help adjust the water flow.gussy said:
Do you have a drawing of your design yet?
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Phischy
New Member
I was going to run a SCWD until I read more about 'em. They really kill your flow, so if you do decide to use one, I'd have some sort of polybag in your rear tank to trap crud and then get a pump that's way beyond what you need b/c the SCWD will just eat up flow rate. But...on the flip side if the tanks are at the same elevation you won't have to deal with head height issues. Plus, when you do figure out your return line, try to use as few 45 and 90d bends as possible, those also kill flow rate. IMHO.