New to hobby, Got a question

[Jetmech2000]

So I've done some research for the last two months,and when I buy my house in April I want to start this hobby. I want to have a 210g reef tank and two 30g tanks that use the same 55g sump/refugium. Is that okay? The two 30g will have different types of fish in them that can't be in a reef tank and some algae plants, live rock, and anemones. how do I determine what pumps I need so that the right amount of water goes back into each tank?

 

[Brad.Sedore]

it definitly can be done but i do believe you will have to drill both your tanks to make it as easy as possible. how i would likely do it is run the tanks in sequence . so go Display1>display2>sump>back to display 1 but honestly why not just get 2 seperate sumps

 

[Jetmech2000]

There will be 3 display tanks, and what I've been reading, that the algae will help with filtering the tanks. I was thinking, have all three tanks poor into the refugium then be pumped back into the display tanks. The tanks will be all in the same custom stand and level with each other and the refugium will be below them.

 

[melosu58]

Moved to General hardware and equipment discussion.

 

[Brad.Sedore]

yeah but if you have a huge reef. do you really want to risk it for the sake of maybe 60-80 bucks for a sump tank. you figure your going to need overflows and pumps for all 3. also if one of them is going to be a fish only you probably wont want to waste your reef salt on it and also you will probably want to drop salinity . i just cant really see much of a benifit

 

[Jetmech2000]

I guess what I was trying to go for was one big Eco-system. Thanks for the input!