Two Display Tanks/One sump

[Ricerocket]

Has anyone had two display tanks next to each other sharing the same sump? Pros/Cons?

[Carto]

I have two 120 gallon reefs that are side-by-side and share a common sump.

These are some of the things I've thought of. I'm sure others with linked systems would have others.

The pros:

- you can distribute fish and coral that may not get along in a single tank into two tanks
- skimming, UV, waterchanges, etc, can be performed for one system rather than two
- the water volume is twice what each system stand alone would be


The cons:

- if something goes wrong, it will affect both tanks.

[Scott S]

I had two 60g with a common sump. One tank was a reef and the other was FOWLR. I had them set up like this for a couple of years. It worked very well because I love the reefs, but I also like the lionfish and angels of the world.

The only downfall that I had was the drainage plumbing initially leaked, but once I fixed it never had any problems.

I do not run this setup anymore because I just moved and purchased a 150 to set up as a reef.