Plumbing a 75 Gallon Tank

[JohnnyReb]

Can one plumb two 75 gallon tanks together from the same 150 cannister gallon filter (SunSun HW304B) by use of Y connections?

 

[MaloK]

Quick response: No

It's nearly impossible to split the flow in such way that it will be absolutely balanced, one of the tanks will overflow until the other is empty.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

It can be done in other ways however. The tanks must be joined in such a way aa the return iw in one tank and the intake int the other.

You can joun them in the same way and oveflow intak works ffor a sump. Or you can drill bot tanks and then connect the openings. Placement wikk matter here.

Essentially, what you are doing is making them one tank. I would place them end to end and then drill the sides. However, you can also do an Aqua Bridge. This vid sets one u on smaller tanks, but the principle is the same. However, those two tanks are independent;y filtered. For your application the goal is not fo the fish to trade tankz, only for the water to do so. The one risk is losing the connectuon due to leaking in one tank causing a bigger disaster.

If you can adopt to using air powered filtration you can bte an bigger type air- pump and it will power both tanks for less tham one bit canister or two smaller ones.

But the real problem with doing what you want is that it subjects both tanks to single point failure. If you have one filter ofr both and it fails, bith tanks are at risk. I have two 75s. They are both well filtered. One runs a canister good for 92 gals. and an AquaClear 300. The other runs the same canister but then also a pair of of powerheads, each with a huge sponge on the intake.

I also had a single stand with a 125 gal over a 40L. Both were powered by a single air pump driving 4 sponges filter of different sizes in each tank. This set-up cost me less than one of the canister filters on the 75s.

I am a real bug on single point failure potential in tanks, So, I tend to use at least 2 filters and 2 heaters in almost all of my tanks. And we also have a whole house back-up generator as we live in an area where power failures are not uncommon. It the power goes out and that gennie fails, it is our single point weakness.

 

[JohnnyReb]

Ty for your great advice. You gave me much to think about and peeked my interest even more in a one filter system. I am an Elderly Educated Redneck from East Texas, don't tell me it cannot be done. LOL

 

[seangee]

If I were to do this I would use a common sump.
Using Y connections alone what is the risk (or what is the worst that can happen?)
IMO this would be that one of the tank inlets gets blocked. Then you end up diverting 150G of water into a 75G tank.
I'm sure it can be done but unless you go for the simple option of @TwoTankAmin the monitoring and control mechanisms would be very complicated - and likely not worth the effort or cost.

 

[JohnnyReb]

A well-known Chinese adage about wisdom is "A fall into a ditch makes you wiser,"("跌倒了，爬起来更智慧" (diē dǎo le, pá qǐ lái gèng zhì huì).