Too many fish tanks

Wes888

Reef enthusiast
Just got the 120 gallon home. Boy! That thing is big! I don't think my wife would like me put that in the living room.

Here is the situation. My 72g is currently sitting on top of the 2nd floor stair way and it's taking up the space of the hallway leading from the stair to the 2nd floor living room. Although the middle part of the 72g bow is 18" which is the same as the 75g and the 120g, it just "seems" like it's taking up not much space since the sides are just 12". I'm thinking having just the "small" 72g bow front stays at the same place and and the overflow water drop to the garage and having all the sump and stuff there. At the same time, the other fish tanks can also setup there and share the sump. I can convert my 40 gallon tall to a sump. Then it should be able to handle all the overflow in case of power failure.

The question is what kind of pump I need to get the water that far up. Vertical different I think it's about 20 feet. Horizontal travel is gonna be about 25 feet. My rough guess is that it'll have at least five or six 90 degree turns.
 
you will definantly have to go with an external pump
none of the mags have that kind of head capability

here is an example of head loss for an external pump that pushes 1050gph at 0 head
that doesnt include 90's

you can see at 20' your only getting 40%

so it seems you would need to be pushing at least 2500gph+/- for a 20' head height, maybe more because of the 90's

Head (ft)
0-1050gph
6-900gph
9-840gph
12-750gph
15-660gph
18-540gph
21-420gph
24-shutoff
 
I really think that you would be pushing any pump too far.

You are talking aver 40 feet of pipe 80 feet round trip. That is an large amount of pipe!!!! If the power does go out, all of that will drain back into the sump. Plus what ever comes from your tank. I am not sure a 40 gallon would hold enough.

What size pipe were you looking at using? Smaller pipe would hold less water but increase head preasure. Larger pipe would hold more water but less preasure.

You could figure out the volume pretty easily.

Brian
 
I don't know what size of pipe I'll be using. My first inclination is 1". If 40g is not enough, I can use the 75g as the sump.
 
Hmm... I could move the 72g DT to the living room and the 120g and the sump could be just a straight down 20 feet. No horizontal travel. Just two 90 degree for the water return at the tank.
 
Reeflo

Hammerhead - at 20' will give you 3,000 GPH (average power use less then 4 light bulbs)
barracuda - at 19' will give you 603 GPH (average power use less then 3 light bulbs)

These are awesome pumps 3-5 year warranty and nice and quiet. I run reeflo on all of my bigger tanks. I use to have a 240 with the sump in my basement with 4 tanks hooked up to it. no problems.
 
Nice! Thank you!! I'm using Quiet One 6000 and has about 1000 gph at 6 feet, but it's feeding a chiller and a algae scrubber as well. My guess is that 600 gph should be enough for the DT.

If I go with the normal PVC pipe, which I incline to, I have so many 90 degree, I'll need something bigger than the barracuda, but smaller than the Hammerhead.

EDIT: Just googled and found there are many choices. Shopping time. :D
 
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TY! I need to get my wife's approval to move the tank to the living room first. :D I might as well move the 125g there. :D
 
I decided to set up the 125g in the living room and I can have a pipe go straight down to the garage. It should be about 19 feet plus two 90 degree at the tank. The Sequence ReeFlo Wahoo should work fine. At 20', I would have 1164 gph and at 25', 715gph. Should be more than enough.
 
Well i didnt say that it was the final answer, just that it was an option. hehehe

yea, one bigger pump will probably me more efficient than a couple smaller ones, but if you have the smaller ones laying around it would be an option.
 
oh nice! Didn't aware Quiet one makes a powerful one like that. I'm a big fan of Quiet One. I have their 4000, 4000HH, and 6000. They are really quiet.

But the 14000 is 270W and is in sump. Potentially, it could be as warm as a 200+W heating though!
 
I run 2 of them in my sump and don't have any heat issues, but my system is much different with the overflow on all four sides. It really cools the tank down. That's one reason I have to have a heater especially at night.
 
hmm!! If that is the case, I don't even have to drill my 75 gal for external pump. That would cut down my work a lot!! The 14000 is cheaper too!

How big is that monster?
 
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