broomer- will buy soon a digital

[newfishliny]

I think getting a digital camera will be great so other
people see what each other is doing. Maybe you have idea,
the sump I am building will have a wet dry , but also I want to put in live rock as additional support system, does it need light ?
the sump is 30in tall and 20in square, its on the side of my custom stand to match. also i have a 20 gal tank under my enclosed stand which will be used for one over flow and return.
2 pumps - Mostly fish for now .
90 gal glass
thanks broomer
have a good day
Don ( long Island NYC )

 

[broomer5]

I've never run two sumps that dont' connect to each other somehow sharing the same water level.
If one overflow feeds/drains to one sump, and another overflow feeds/drains to the other sump - what keeps the water level in each sump balanced ?
I'm scratching my head thinking about this.
For discussion let's assume you get everything working and the levels are right in both sumps.
Everything seems cool. Life it good.
Power goes out - you're not there to see it happen.
Power comes back on, but only one pump starts back up and you're still not there looking in on things.
Water in the one sump drops as it's working pump pushes water back up to the tank. Tank level rises as it should - a little slower - but it rises nevertheless.
Water begins to trickle down BOTH overflows to BOTH sumps, but at a much lower flowrate.
This of course is assuming there is enough water in the working sump to get the display tank water level up to the overflow teeth.
Let's assume it does for example.
Not such a big deal in the sump with the working pump.
Major big deal in the sump that has the dead pump. It's water level will now begin to rise and rise untill it takes as much water as it can. It may overflow. All depends - but it may.
As it takes on more of the systems water - the other sump may get starved for water. Now the working pump may run dry and burn up. It may run dry. All depends - but it may.
Now you may have a wet floor near one sump.
A burned up pump in the other dry sump.
No circulation in the display tank.
Filter media either gets flooded or is dry.
Heaters that may be in either sump either burn up, or do nothing but heat water in a flooded sump.
Display tank gets stagnate and cold - fish die - corals die - tank goes south.
And you're still not there to see all of this happening.
Still scratching my head over this - I'll give it some more thought.

 

[broomer5]

Something I just thought of NewFishLINY
If you stage your overflows so one is higher in the tank than the other - the higher overflow draining to the smaller sump, and the lower overflow draining to the larger sump - it might work.
Still would be a potential for an imbalance to occur - but would reduce the risks of pssibly flooding sumps.
Gotta go now ...