central sump idea - i want feeback

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b-man

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Mar 28, 2006
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come spring i going to start my central sump project. its basically it a few tanks service by one monster sized sump filteration system (bead filter + wet/dry) with a constant drip.

with that said, ppl with such a setup please give me your thoughts. pros-cons. any advice? show me some pics if you got them.

i believe the obvious con is cross contaimination. but has anyone actually experienced a bad situation? i see alot retail stores "ganging" a bunch tanks together all the time.



thanks
b-
 
I had 4 reef tanks on a central sump. It was a good system for the most part. All of it was diy. I had to do alot of tinkering because none of the tanks were the same hieght or in the same room for that matter. Very fun for 2 years. Tore it all down and went to 1 big tank.
 
i put in 8-10's( sideways), 4-29's, and two 55's on a stacked system. The plan was that after the fish were quarantined the would be put in the system until i put them in customers tanks. Everything worked great until i had to dismantle it to come back to NY. Still haven't set it back up.
 
b-man;1361757; said:
^ yeah i not looking fowarding to tweaking it........ i'm sure the head pressure is going to be a b*tch to work out.....
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Not sure waht you mean....... There is nothing to work out at all if you use a gravity fed (i.e. standard drilled overflow) system. Whatever is pumped into each tank is what drains out of each tank (assuming the drains are properly sized).
 
I believe ODDBALL, one of our Mods, has a system like your wanting. He posted pics of it about a month ago I think. Just going off memory though. Maybe he'll chime in when he sees this thread or you can do a search.
 
its a great idea and saves time on alot of maintenence. one of my LFS had a wall that was all on one sump, and once one fish got ick, they all got it. most pet stores dont take the best care either though.
 
cchhcc;1362538; said:
Not sure waht you mean....... There is nothing to work out at all if you use a gravity fed (i.e. standard drilled overflow) system. Whatever is pumped into each tank is what drains out of each tank (assuming the drains are properly sized).
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You are right if he uses a seperate pump for each tank. If he uses one pump and branches it off to each tank, he will have to control the flow with valves. If he dosen't, the tank at the lowest elevation will get the most flow, the nexh highest will be second and so on. Gravity will prevent the higher tank from getting the same flow as the lower tank.
 
frnchjeep;1362630; said:
You are right if he uses a seperate pump for each tank. If he uses one pump and branches it off to each tank, he will have to control the flow with valves. If he dosen't, the tank at the lowest elevation will get the most flow, the nexh highest will be second and so on. Gravity will prevent the higher tank from getting the same flow as the lower tank.
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I was speaking only of the drains being gravity based. Of course the returns would need valves. I wouldn't run a return without valves anyway as you need to be able to take a tank off line from time to time.

As far as disease transmission goes, you shouldn't have problems if your fish are healthy and you quarantine all new introductions.

I've run several different central systems over the years, and I wouldn't have a fish room without such a setup in the future. I suggest you add a large sponge filter to each tank so that there will be some backup filtration should you need to isolate a tank from the system. Also, sponge filters are good early feeding sites for fry.

It is also a big plus to have all the raw drain water dumping nto a large micron bag. Prefilter pads, etc. can get to be tedious to deal with, and they don't trap all the particulates anyway. You'll need several bags as the clog quickly, but it is a snap to swap them out every now and then.
 
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