Connect two tanks

[th08tu]

Hello,
I was wondering if anybody has any ideas on connecting two tanks together that would be more or less at the same level. I have a 20 gallon tall guppy tank, and I am interested in setting up my extra ten gallon tank to be used for guppy fry. Anyways, is there any way I could connect the two tanks so that they would circulate with eachother. This way the water parameters would be very close to the same in each tank. If that was a little confusing I was thinking about having the 20 gallon pump into the ten gallon, and then the ten gallon pump into the 20 gallon. The only problem with this idea is there will be flooding, and I am a little nervous about using two pumps incase one fails and the other keeps pumping, eventually, water all over my floor. Any ideas would be great everybody!

[Mystery]

Basically any tube will connect two tank with the same water level one you use some airhose to suck the air out. I used an aquabridge for a while but pretty much any U-bend will do.

[th08tu]

Would that mean I would need to raise the ten gallon to have the water level at the same height at the 20, then just make a simple u- joint out of PVC pipe? is it that simple, even if I hook up a power head from one tank to the other?

[Mystery]

Yes, so long as you take the air out of the pipe, water will naturally move through the pipe to equalise the tanks at the same water level.

[cabezon]

you will of course want to cover the openings in something porous.

[exodon king]

sorry, but the above suggestion WILL NOT WORK.

the best way to pull this off would be to stack the tanks, then you would either buy or make an overflow to pull water from the top tank to the bottom, a pump will sit in the bottom tank, and pump water back to the tank on top, completing the cycle.
if you plan to use the bottom tank for fry, you will need to isolate the area where the pump is (either with a net, or some kind of divider) so the fry dont get sucked into the pump. if you get a pump with a foam pre-filter, it may work, as long as the pump isnt too strong.

[exodon king]

[Mystery]

Why wouldn't it work?

[exodon king]

Originally Posted by Mystery

Why wouldn't it work?

two tanks next to eachother at the same level with a PVC pipe in the middle would only create still water in the pipe. there would be no circulation in the tanks at all, and would pretty mich defeat the purpose.

there is an alternative sump method that could be used, where the tanks are side by side, but one is lifted higher than the other. the water is pushed from the lower display to the higher one via powerhead or internal pump, and the highertank would overflow back into the lower display.



but its better to go with the over under design. it takes up quite a bit less space, andIME is easier to work with.

[BigJim]

I think the horizontal siphon could work, but it'd be tricky to set up due to the minimal height difference.

A better setup in my mind would be a vertical overflow/pump system like Exodon king suggested.

- I'd put the 20H up top with the breeders in it, overflow down to the 10g.

- Silicone a wall into the 10g to create a refugium/pump zone setup like a lot of saltwater sumps have. Make the pump zone just big enough to fit the pump. It should keep the fry out of the pump intake. You may have to experiment with cutting teeth in the wall and adding netting.

- Pump the water from the 10g back up to the 20H.

- Set your divider wall height and fill levels in the 10g so that there's room for the overflow to spill enough water to break the siphon when you unplug the pump.

If you set up separate filters for each tank and use the pump/overflow just to mix the water, I don't think you'd need a huge pump.