Dry/wet For 2 Tanks

[GCTS]

Here's my project:

The base tank is a 50x50x25cm wich gives about 16 gallons. The tank above will have something beetween 7 or 8 gallons.

I'm eager to start building it, i just don't know how would i do the filtration system. I mean, the technical specifications, how tick should be the pipes etc. So, in the drawing i've just showed you, it would be placed bellow the tanks. The red pipe would take water from the filter to the top tank. The water would flow into the base tank by the black pipe and then it would go back to the dry wet by the white one. (the colors are just for didactic purposes)

The way i drawed, the pipes will have joints at the top of the tanks, so, if i turn off the pumps, the water will flow just bellow the tank-pipe joint, an then i won't have water all over my room. The questions here are if is it the best method and how thick should the pipes be. With it decided, i'll start building and, of course, sending you photos.

 

[OldMan47]

That arrangement will get you in trouble unless you move the white pipe higher up in the bottom tank. Whenever the pump stops, you want both the tanks with fish in them to keep a fairly high level to avoid overflowing the sump. The sump is not only the filter, it is the surge volume for starting and stopping the pumping process. When things are running, the sump should have a low enough level that stopping all pumping will not overflow it.