265 gallon South American in-the-wall build thread
- Thread starter pdandy
- Start date
It runs great, no issues until I lose a pump. I like to run two pumps on all my sumps just for redundancy. Keeping fish as long as me I realize it's just a matter of time until a pump fails. Having a second pump you only lose half of your capacity. Really no big deal if I repair/replace it in a couple days.
On my system in the 450 I have two 55 gallon sumps connected with a 1" line. Each sump has a pump. If one pump fails or even slows a little bit then that sump will over flow and the sump with the good pump will run dry. This is because the 1" line is just not big enough to equalize the two sumps. So now I have twice the chance for a bad fail. If either pump fails I have issues because my filtration will shut down until I repair/replace the failed pump.
You should test your system by running just one pump and see if the 2” line has the capacity to keep your sumps running. This will also help you decide on your water level in your sump. The sump with the pump running will drain a little but as long as there’s enough water to keep the pump running you will be fine. The sump with the pump off will fill up but as long as it doesn’t overflow you will be fine. Good luck. Two sumps sucks and I will never do it again LOL
really thought thats a good idea with separate sump system for each over-flo tower.. my 300 it was 1 sump system with 1 corner flow from one end of the tank to the other to the filter sock side of the sump.. with this setup i don't have to worry about the draining of not being equal... i was thinking since you have a 2" line why can't you Tee it off and run the pump at the Tee of the two sumps joint together.. i know Egon won't do it since you like redundancy.. then to eliminate that problem put 2 Tees where you interconnect the 2 sumps and each Tee you have a pump connected to it.. hope you 2 understand what i'm talking about..
I thought about doing that. But I already have my pumps and they are set up to be submersible. Maybe in the future if i want to upgrade the pump I'll get a nice external pump. Like a reef-flo or something along those lines and run it off of the connection between the two sumps.
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You have a good point about the T and that does work. In my situation I just didn't have room and I'm forced to use a submersible pump inside my sump. Not ideal considering heat exchange and living in Phoenix lol. But I was a newbie when I set this tank up. Hindsight: Just one massive sump and no submersible pumps
The rest of my tanks are set up this way. Each new set up has learning’s from my last set up. Filter socks, trickle system, temp controllers, i'm super happy with each new set up. It gets easier and easier. Now I’m running out of room for tanks LOLAll finished for now. Just waiting on my RO filter to make the last 50 gallons or so to wake this bad boy up!
Damn that looks good! My last house I had a 360 in wall build. I wish I could do that again at my place now.
One thing I did as an afterthought was put a small door above the tank and I cut a 1.5" hole in the top of the acrylic tank for feeding. It was nice to be able to feed the fish that way instead of running around from the back of the tank and try to see who is eating and so on lol.
I really miss having the room in the back of the tank for all the filters. I kept everything back there. Now I'm squeezing everything under the stand and it's a PITA to change filters and so on. Dang I wish I could do the in-wall thing again!!!!
Love your set up, thanks for posting
One thing I did as an afterthought was put a small door above the tank and I cut a 1.5" hole in the top of the acrylic tank for feeding. It was nice to be able to feed the fish that way instead of running around from the back of the tank and try to see who is eating and so on lol.
I really miss having the room in the back of the tank for all the filters. I kept everything back there. Now I'm squeezing everything under the stand and it's a PITA to change filters and so on. Dang I wish I could do the in-wall thing again!!!!
Love your set up, thanks for posting
