Comon chiller between two tanks

[diverdick]

Ok, here is a good brain teaser for all of you. I recently acquired another reef tank and have located it fairly close to my existing tank....bout 48" at a right angle. Both systems have a sump. One is a refugium and the other is a simple sump. Both have skimmers.

My problem is, how can I plumb it to share a chiller? I am resisting setting up an entirely new sump to accommodate somewhere between the tanks due to aesthetics's. These systems are in my living area and all the water noise is enough to get my wife in a froth. Adding a goofy looking sump between them would surely lead to disaster for me.

Any ideas would be wonderful,

Regards,

--Rich

 

[Scooterman]

First off is the chiller rated to cool off the combined amount of water?
In my opinion I see too much troubles or possibilities of flooding if you get a failure, it would be complicated to prep for this. JMO though!

 

[kgross]

I don't know of any way you can do this unless you have 2 controllers and some automated valves. You would have to turn on a pump and open the valves in one sump when it was 2 hot, and then do the same when the other sump is to hot, but you would also have to set it up so that both feed pumps and valves were not open at the same time or you could pump water from one sump to the other. On the valves, you would need 4 of them, an inlet and outlet for each sump.

Kim

 

[Krish]

Also I'm thinking, if they are sharing the same chiller then they will be basically working as one system (the tanks won't be independant of one another anymore) as water from each tank will be shared between both tanks so I guess that is something you will have to determine if you want to happen as well.

 

[jesshimom]

Plan on your wife getting in a froth when you add a noisey chiller. Add a second froth for the excess heat in the room. Been there on both counts.

 

[kgross]

I have been thinking about this some more and I know how you can do it without any automated valves. You will setup the chiller basicly in a third tank that will act as the heat sink for the other to tanks. Set the chiller to keep this tank at like 70 degrees or even lower. Then use some type of a heat exchanger for each of the other tanks, and either have the heat exchanger in this third tank, or have one in each of the other sumps. You will need 2 other temp controllers though that will turn a pump on when you need cooling in that system and pump water through the heat exchange of that tank.

This will not be cheap and will take quite a bit of room, but it will keep the tanks separate.

 

[Scooterman]

The originator of this thread hasn't posted this thread since 11-7-07, I would think he either figured it out by now or would still be asking for help. Also your missing out on lots of details, kgross, I noticed you dig up older threads, don't know why?

 

[kgross]

Sorry I will stay out of here.