# One sump, six tanks



## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

Hey, I'm planning a fishroom for my new place and i was going to set up a breeding/growout rack with 4 10g and 2 20g with a sump (probably my extra wide 33g lol) I'm not drilling these because ive seen too many 10gs break while drilling so im diy overflowing it. The return where my concern lies. 

Will one pump be able to return to all six returns or do i have to get six mini pumps? 

What pump will I need? 

It will be 80 gallons plus about 20 gallons of sump water so will i need to get a pump rated for 100g?


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## TorontoPlantMan (Aug 16, 2013)

Kimchi24 said:


> Hey, I'm planning a fishroom for my new place and i was going to set up a breeding/growout rack with 4 10g and 2 20g with a sump (probably my extra wide 33g lol) I'm not drilling these because ive seen too many 10gs break while drilling so im diy overflowing it. The return where my concern lies.
> 
> Will one pump be able to return to all six returns or do i have to get six mini pumps?
> 
> ...


Hey man, I'm in the process of doing the same thing but with six 10 gallons and a 32 gallon sump. In order to find the best pump for your needs, besides figure out how much water it will be (80+your sump), you'll have to figure out the distance it's going to be and how many elbows you're going to be using, each elbow reduces flow. I'd figure out first what height your rack is going to be and then take it from there.

I've yet to install the sump/plumbing, but I'm also going to use sponge filters in all the tanks. Here's what mine looks like so far, it's not done yet but I had to get all the tanks put away, they were taking up too much space.

Looking forward to seeing your build.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

Cool build! Thanks for sharing. Is there like an online calculator for this lol?

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk


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## WiyRay (Jan 11, 2009)

I think a water pump's GPH is affected a lot by the height (and elbows, and everything really)... Are all the tanks at the same height? Or are they stacked 2x3, 3x2, etc? Will the tubing all be equally split? some further than others? 

Consider how much flow you're aiming to get PER tank. Things would probably get confusing if they're at different levels. I would probably stick with getting one pump per level at the least just to make it easier on yourself.

If you look more closely at the specifications for the water pumps, they usually give out info such as Max GPH @ 0 height and GPH @ Max Height. I think these specs are under the assumption that it isn't divided either.

If you don't want to do the math and have the time and $ to waste. Consider buying many pumps at once just to trial an error at home until you find the perfect combination, then return the pumps that arn't used.


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## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

Thanks for the info! I have decided that I will be using 2 pumps.I'm going to overkill the pumpage a little bit to accomodate teh height. Im probably going for a 600gph for the top 4xtengallons and a 500gph pump for the bottom 2x 20gallons. One's a long and one's a tall so I may have to even get a third.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

if you can stack up the tanks and have the top over flow to the next down and so on, you can just use one pump per column of tanks.

Downside to having so many tanks combined is if you get an infection it will spread through the whole chain of tanks. Also, any small fry might end up in the over flows.

For breeding tanks I recommend single tanks with sponge filters and use your idea for the grow out tanks


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