Adjacent tanks plumbed together for fish to pass?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Does anyone have 2 tanks side by side that are plumbed together with bulk heads and PVC pipe so that fish can travel between the 2 tanks?

I have such a setup with my sump (2x44 gallon trash cans with 2" PVC connecting them), but I've never had an actual tank that way.

Also, I know that one can get pretty big bulkheads, but how large of a hole is readily drilled through a glass tank (like the end of a 180)?

[grafxguy]

I have never seen one with bulkheads but there are acrylic tanks that I have seen that have about a 5 inch diameter tube that connects two tanks. eric

[Icepic]

im lookinf at setting up my 2 75g side by side , i have seen some that use bulk head , but i will be using a water brigge to were ethe fish can swim up a tube out over the rim of the tank and into the other tank ..


hers an example

http://www.bio-elite.com/waterbridge.htm

[pan_tsu?]

That's hilarious and awesome. Very creative.

[Malcolm_C]

I was considering the same thing with acrylic tanks, and usinng 8 inch acrylic tube to connect the tanks. I would think that aslong as the tank isn't to deep it would work. but since the tank may settle over time. i would think you would need to use sometype of rubber bushing inbetween the two tanks. Homedepot sells the 4'' rubber pvc pipe patch, I'm sure a plumbing supply store could get 4' bulkheads. or try usplastic.com

[marinelife]

I had a 55 that was that way, two 27 gallon tanks, it was cool.

[justgettinstarted]

what about when that tube gets algea in it... that would be a PITA! LOL

I think as big as you want... the bits just get real expensive... just on a quick google search i found this place... http://advantage-drillbits.com/glass.html and they sell a 6" glass cutting bit and i am sure that you can get larger...

And you can get bulkheads up to 1'... found a place that had them once! LOL

i think the most important thing if you did this on 2 large tanks would be that they are either on the same stand so there is no motion relative to one another (stop any sort of leak)

or

to have a small portion of flex tubing on either side that would be hidden from view but allow setteling on seperate stands... or build on concrete where there will be no setteling!

[Jamesurq]

what a cool idea!! I'd love to see that set up with 2 tanks on either side of a TV or fireplace with the fish swimming over it!!

As far as keeping it clean, you could get a bottlebrush that might help - or pull an urchin through it attached to a string....

[koj11]

What a cool idea!!! How about using a valve on either side of the main center section so you could remove it for easier cleaning.

[Mr_Quality]

If you have any Rain Forest Cafe restaurants near Beantown, they usually have a huge pair of fish-only tanks that are joined by a large tube. Go check it out.

Mike

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes, I've seen those. Thanks.

[zep]

Hi Randy,

I used to work for a maintanace and installation company here in Dallas named Aquatic Environments. We put a tank in a sushi bar/night club in downtown Dallas that was two 500 gallon glass aquariums connected by a roughly 100 gallon acrylic cylinder. The guy who built it worked for AE but used to be an engineer over at oceanic. I asked him how was able to join glass to acrylic with silicone and he said he did it the same way they put the acrylic over flow boxes in glass tanks at oceanic - he treated the glass and silicone with this horrible smelling chemical that supposedly allows the silicone to adhere to the acrylic (maybe it "pits" it somehow?) To get the holes cut out he simply made a CAD drawing of where he wanted the holes cut and took it to a local water jet/cutting place and had them done for a reasonable price. The circles were computer precision cuts about 2.5 feet in diameter.


Anyway, maybe you could use large diameter acrylic tube and silicone it directly to the tank. Assuming you can think of a chemical that will do what you need it to because I can't remember the name of the chemical he used and do not work for that company any longer. I guess the hardest part would be "how to cut a large hole"

have fun with it,

[Icepic]

another idea im doing in my setup is to make one of the flow back to one of the tanks slower than the other tank creating a siphon between one tank to the other so stuff wont build up too much , keeping the junk moving ,, also a way to clean it would be to get one of the shower crunchy thangs your wives probly know what im talking about . and tie a sting to it and just pull it back and forth through the tube

[beerguy]

What you need is this:



More pics at http://fishighway.com

[justgettinstarted]

if the siphon on that gets broken... what a mess that would be...

[prof10000]

I need one of those. It would be a good place to set up a hidden tank to catch enough overflow from the 'highway'. You would just need to calculate the total volume on the 'highway' and setup an overflow system on the 2 (or more) tanks.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I would presume that bubbles build up inside of such a device, especially since it is at negative atmospheric pressure compared to the remainder of the tank. Run it up 33 feet, and the water would be boiling at room temperature.

[Icepic]

i would say it would require two tank to get the water if the vacuum was ever broken ,, and also i think it would take two or 3 extra bulk head to keep up with the flow , if you lost it slowly no problem , if she crack and lost it fast , need some thing to keep up with the flow ,


another idea- add like little baffles though out the tube so , that if will only let half the total water flow out , so that if a fish was in the tube when it yet , they wont be left high and dry

just an idea

[Jamesurq]

yeah - what about the bubble buildup? you couldn't get them out right"?

[Uncle-Edgar]

Here - Here for the urchin on a string, great idea

[Icepic]

how to get the bubbles out if you have a pump contantly pump out of the top pf the unit ,,, like those over flow units that require a venri to vacum pump out the air bubbles of a siphone tube ..

[justgettinstarted]

if you simply used a U shaped acrylic tube... there would be no build up of bubbles cause they would come out into both tanks...

whats wrong with going under rather than over? lol