Cycling Multiple tanks with centralised filter

[David]

More or less. Bacteria Colony is dependent on total media surface area and level of NH to NO3 of your bio-load

[Urban Aquaria]

Once you have fully cycled bio-media in a canister filter, if you increase the number of connected tanks, water volume or bio-load, the existing bacteria will grow to match it (assuming the bio-media volume/surface area is still sufficient for the added bio-load)... usually best to allow 2-3 days to let the system stabilize before adding more fauna progressively in stages.

The key is just to have ample bio-media and to allow time for the bacteria to grow to keep up with the new tank additions.

[Wildconservationist]

Hey David;

Thank you for the clarification.
Which means that once Stage 1 beneficial bacterial have colonized inside the FX5/6 and all the foams, Stage 1 system should be able to handle additional chemical spikes from the other additional tanks.

[Wildconservationist]

Hey Urban Aquaria;

Thank you for your input.
And i think i will heed your advice, monitor for at least 1 weeks prior adding New Fauna to the systems.
Cause at Stage 2 of the project, additional sump tank will be added and i reckon there will be beneficial bacterial boom during this period as well..
Hopefully, this sudden surge in ammonia, nitrite and nitrate from Stage 2 of installation will not harm those Fauna in the tanks installed during Stage 1.

[Pork Life]

Hi bro. Think you may want to do some calculations based on the above diagrams. Seems your head losses, i.e. water flow rate reduction due to height of outputs, bends in pipes and inner tube smoothness, may be quite a lot for the filter (cannisters have a certain maximum head to work) to take, especially for the stage 2 picture.

Hey Eric;

Here's the drawing for discussion:

Stage 1:
Attachment 37556

Stage 2:
Attachment 37557

[Wildconservationist]

Hi Pork life;

The stage 2 shown is before amendment.
The design have being change and instead of the FX5/6 doing the propulsion of the chilled water, i have change it to be done by an eheim 1260 which is having a 2400L/hr and having a Hmax at 3.7m. That's almost double because the highest tank will be at 1.7m. And this path is basically channeling all the chilled water pass all tank to chilled all the tanks.

[Urban Aquaria]

Just curious, the majority of multi-tier overflow setups i've seen so far use one outflow at the top tank, then the top tank's overflow will feed into the middle tank's inflow and so on to the bottom tank.

So in the typical 3 tier setup, only one outflow originates directly from the filter at the top tank, the rest are "fed" by overflow pipes from preceding tanks, and eventually only the outflow from the last tank's overflow goes back to the filter.

Was just looking at your first diagram, it shows 3 separate outflow and inflow tubes connected together in the same network of pipes to 3 tanks... as water moves through the path of least resistance, and due to gravity in a vertical setup, wouldn't the bottom tank just get the most flow and the top 2 tanks get little or no flow?

[Wildconservationist]

Hi Urban Aquaria;

Once again, the posted design are mainly prototype and some amendment has being done to the design...

Instead of splitting into 3 level right after the filter, i have change it to such that the filtered water will be pump/channeled to the top most level first before working the way down to the bottom tier in a continuous piping. With this plumbing, the filter just have to concentrate on pumping/channeling the filtered water all the way to the top. Once on top, gravity will do it's job, bring the water down.
All inlet to the tank will have a ball valve installed so that the amount of water entering each level can be controlled.
Example of a ball valve.
Attachment 37572
Beside regulating the in-coming water, there will be ball valve installed on the outlet side. This installation is meant to isolation of any level in the event i need it..
I can do it by turning off the inlet and outlet ball valve.

The main reason why there's 3 individual outlet channel are plumbed into the single return to the sump tank is also to reduce diseases out-break, like i says...It's Reduced, not eliminate the chance. With this plumbing design, each tanks overflow will goes into the sump tank directly. And they will pass through stages of filtration and UV exposure prior going back to the tank again. The odds of bacterial spreading is lower... as compared to the top tier tank water overflow into the middle tier, overflow into the bottom tier and eventually into the sump. I reckon more piping are required, but this kinda ensure that the chance of out-break are lower.

Hope that my explanation has cleared some of your doubts...

[Urban Aquaria]

I see... good idea on using a gravity fed system and putting ball valves on each inlet pipe, that'll help regulate the flow in each tank.