75g. Reef plumbing question

[musashi666]

Ok, here is the deal. I want to drill a 1" and a 3/4" bulkhead into a 55g acrylic tank that is FW now and plumb it into my 75 gallon reef. Thing is, I want the 55g next to the 75g. I already have an 18g sump and an 18g. refugeum fed by my lifereef overflow box under my 75.

Here is what I am thinking.
1. Have a maxi-900 or 1200 in the display tank pumping water across and into the 55g through the 3/4" bulkhead.
2. Have it overflow into the 1" bulkhead on the other side of the tank and have it
3. overflowflow down into the sump of my 75 gallon reef.

Am I missing something here or will it work??

Will I have any flooding problems in my sump due to an inconsistency w/ the added overflow from my 55g addition?

Any help would be greatly appreciated guys!!!

THANKS!!

 

[Anonymous]

hmm...

i'm not a plumbing expert... :wink:

there may be someone on the rdo chat channel that can help you out though...

here's the instruction link for getting onto #reefs through the sites java applet:

http://www.reefs.org/access/

welcome to the board!

 

[Anonymous]

your plan will work.

as far as flooding is concerned you need to be sure that whatever head you are maintaining in the 55g tank does not hold enough water to overfill your lower sump/refugium or maintank during an outage.

this can be determined by calculating how much of an elevation difference there will be between the higher aquarium's full level and it's inlet elevation....and/or maintank water surface elevation (whichever is less).

then take the other dimensions of the higher tank (length and width) into consideration and calculate gallonage.

compare this to the amount you could hold now without overflowing.

how's that for confusing?

 

[musashi666]

Thanks for the help.

The job is done and all is fine.

Used 2 3/4" bulkheads on the 55 and T'd off the main return line from the sump into both tanks.