My grand plumbing plan.

R

Reefmike

Not to scale but you get the idea.

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The 55g fuge under the 100 will be raised up 6". This will give about 8" of room for access. There will be no equipment in it, just fuge. The 100 will drain to it thru 1-1/2", then it will gravity drain via 2" to the equipment sump.
The 75 will drain to the equipment sump. There will be 2 return pumps in the equip. sump, 1 to each tank.

Anybody see anything wrong with this?
 
what is the return pump to the 100?
i think it will drain the way u have it but the sump under the 75 will have to have a lot more room for water when u shut off the pumps, also u dont want the flow threw the fuge as fast as u would threw the sump so either the 100 will have to have really good flow from power heads or i would plumb it from the one drain from the 100 tank but T off the drain one in the sump and one to fuge with valve so u can slow the fuge flow down
 
The return to the 100 will be a QO 3000. With head loss ~ 500gph.
After doing some calculating I'll probanly need to lower the drain size to 1" (on the 100).

Yeah, the extra water drain if power is lost does concern me. Battery back-ups that would run the returns for at least a couple of hours would be a necessity. And a shut-off valve in the drain from the fuge to the sump (for maintenance).
 
does it have to be 75 on left anf 100 on the right.. if you switched them around then your run from the 100 wouldnt need to be so long..

I would go with as big as a sump you can fit as that would fill really quick once the power goes off
 
As has been mentioned, I'd try to have the bigger tank (Assuming bigger tank = higher turnover) closer to the equipment sump.

Also, on whatever tank is further away and over the refuguim, I'd either add a 2nd overflow to the tank, or split the flow coming out of the tank and put a ball valve on ONE of the sides of the split (Not both... Just In Case, don't give Murphy an opportunity!) so that you can have higher flow through the display tank, but regulate the flow down and have less flow through the refuguim...

In fact, I'd even consider making it three tanks each with their own return and drain pumps and lines into the sump instead of 2 and a half, if there's room and the logistics work out, something kinda like this:
 
Something else, with more tanks the sump's gonna be stressed to hold it all... If you go with a 3 equal tanks feeding from one sump design, can the sump be moved somewhere else in the system and made much, MUCH bigger?
 
Can you give us the dimensions of each vessel? That way we can determine the amount of water that will drain down during each power outage or pump failure.

Having individual pumps is nice, but the more you have, the more heat they add to the water. A single pump that feeds multiple tanks can be controlled with ball or gate valves.
 
100 - 60x18x20
75 - 48x18x21
refugium - 48x12x21 (water level at 16")
sump - 36x12x16 (water level at 12" in first 2, 10" in last)

The level drops ~3/4 of an inch in both when the return stops.

Having individual pumps is nice said:
Yeah but, a single pump fails and both tanks drain into the sump. I feel better with 2.
Click to expand...
 
As long as each pump can NOT pump more than the display tank it is feeding, I think that will be okay.

The 100g (1" of drainage) = 4.7g of water
The 75g (1" of drainage) = 3.7g of water
The refugium (1" of drainage) = 2.5g of water

The sump can hold (for each 1" of empty volume) = 1.9g of water

If the displays and the refugium drained 1" each, your sump needs to be able to hold about 11g of extra water. The sump would have to be empty all the way across for almost 4" of space.

If the systems drained even more water, the sump would have to have even more extra space.

Have you considered making the sump the refugium, and the 55g the sump? It would be work, but you'd have more breathing room. The 55g can be at ground level, and the former sump could be elevated. You'd have to cut out some baffles, but since it is acrylic, it would be easy to drill it to drain into the 55g under your 100g system.
 
Mike, I'd suggest redoing any anti-siphon holes on the returns to maximize their use, really minimizing the backflow draining. If you place them in the proper place the amount of water form the display tanks should be cut to a bare minimum and then its just a matter of where you place that bulkhead from the 55 to the sump to adjust the amount of water that ends up in the sump. If you do it right, you can minimize it. You'll have to roll the dice though and may end up having to readjust things a bit.
 
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