Hi,
I need expert help on connecting two tanks in my home office. My current tank sits next to my desk which is obviously an ideal position as my eyes drift from my monitors to my tank several times per minute. It's really incredible how connected I feel with my tank due to working from home and being next to the tank at almost all times.
Now, behind my back there's an empty space that has been a mess of reef tank related stuff for several years now - buckets, hoses, pumps, towels, a few boxes with spare parts, old equipment and a rack with supplies - foods, additives, glues, putty... Not only is the wife fed up with the open storage in the middle of the room, it's now also myself who's fed up with it in all honesty.
Obviously the idea of a nice long shelf to hold all the buckets and equipment is nice, but even nicer is the fact that I'd have a flat space for a frag tank! However... and now I come to the issue at hand - the tanks wouldn't sit next to each other and I don't know how to connect them without having pipes running over the floor. Naturally, I'd like to use the sump I already have. I won't have space for another sump within the new shelf and I'd also like to save costs on a separate skimmer, doser, heater etc.
This is not my photo but you will get the idea as the setup is similar - my desk is next to the tank and the only place where I can put the new shelf with the frag tank is right behind me and in more or less the middle of the room (expertly drawn in red). People walk over that space all day, including kids running, crawling and generally being a hazard to any object within this area, particularly one filled with water and being placed on the floor.
Now I also live in Europe and the floor is reinforced concrete. Yes, I could lift the laminate flooring, drill the concrete and place the tubing there, then pour concrete over it and place new laminate on top but it's extremely expensive, I'm afraid of leaks and I'd long be dead in a domestic violence case perpetrated by my lovely wife before the project is ever complete.
Now I'm turning to the r2r DIY community for ideas. My first idea was to use a permanent peristaltic pump to pump water from a common sump with a thin flexible tube and have the same silicon or thin plastic return tube with enough leeway running back to the sump. The flow would be lacking but it'd be something at least. Tubing could be longer and flexible enough so that even if someone stumbles on it this won't be too bad. Nothing would break. Honestly, I don't know if this make any sense in terms of flow to/from sump and in terms of safety.
The other idea is to have a sort of a "Tower Bridge" system, whereas early in the morning I would "lift" or disconnect the pipes from the sump creating and empty space between the two tanks and effectively disconnecting the frag tank from the main system. Then late at night I would lower the pipes and connect the flow again. I have no idea how this could be accomplished and if possible at all. It would also need to be pretty simple to do so I'm not lazy to do it every morning and evening, but also pretty foul-proof in terms of flooding. I know that parameters would fluctuate quite substantially, including pH and that I'd need a separate heater in the frag tank when it's not connected but I'd take that over drilling reinforced concrete.
The only thing I know would work without drilling are those hose protector ramps placed on the floor with tubing running through them but they're just ugly and are not a kind of decorative pieces you'd like to have in a middle of your home.
If you have any ideas please, please, please share. Thanks!
I need expert help on connecting two tanks in my home office. My current tank sits next to my desk which is obviously an ideal position as my eyes drift from my monitors to my tank several times per minute. It's really incredible how connected I feel with my tank due to working from home and being next to the tank at almost all times.
Now, behind my back there's an empty space that has been a mess of reef tank related stuff for several years now - buckets, hoses, pumps, towels, a few boxes with spare parts, old equipment and a rack with supplies - foods, additives, glues, putty... Not only is the wife fed up with the open storage in the middle of the room, it's now also myself who's fed up with it in all honesty.
Obviously the idea of a nice long shelf to hold all the buckets and equipment is nice, but even nicer is the fact that I'd have a flat space for a frag tank! However... and now I come to the issue at hand - the tanks wouldn't sit next to each other and I don't know how to connect them without having pipes running over the floor. Naturally, I'd like to use the sump I already have. I won't have space for another sump within the new shelf and I'd also like to save costs on a separate skimmer, doser, heater etc.
This is not my photo but you will get the idea as the setup is similar - my desk is next to the tank and the only place where I can put the new shelf with the frag tank is right behind me and in more or less the middle of the room (expertly drawn in red). People walk over that space all day, including kids running, crawling and generally being a hazard to any object within this area, particularly one filled with water and being placed on the floor.
Now I also live in Europe and the floor is reinforced concrete. Yes, I could lift the laminate flooring, drill the concrete and place the tubing there, then pour concrete over it and place new laminate on top but it's extremely expensive, I'm afraid of leaks and I'd long be dead in a domestic violence case perpetrated by my lovely wife before the project is ever complete.
Now I'm turning to the r2r DIY community for ideas. My first idea was to use a permanent peristaltic pump to pump water from a common sump with a thin flexible tube and have the same silicon or thin plastic return tube with enough leeway running back to the sump. The flow would be lacking but it'd be something at least. Tubing could be longer and flexible enough so that even if someone stumbles on it this won't be too bad. Nothing would break. Honestly, I don't know if this make any sense in terms of flow to/from sump and in terms of safety.
The other idea is to have a sort of a "Tower Bridge" system, whereas early in the morning I would "lift" or disconnect the pipes from the sump creating and empty space between the two tanks and effectively disconnecting the frag tank from the main system. Then late at night I would lower the pipes and connect the flow again. I have no idea how this could be accomplished and if possible at all. It would also need to be pretty simple to do so I'm not lazy to do it every morning and evening, but also pretty foul-proof in terms of flooding. I know that parameters would fluctuate quite substantially, including pH and that I'd need a separate heater in the frag tank when it's not connected but I'd take that over drilling reinforced concrete.
The only thing I know would work without drilling are those hose protector ramps placed on the floor with tubing running through them but they're just ugly and are not a kind of decorative pieces you'd like to have in a middle of your home.
If you have any ideas please, please, please share. Thanks!