Your thoughts on plumbing two systems together

[Mr Cob]

hey Allan...any drawbacks to your multiple systems plumbed together?

yes, the new sump will be about 100g

I'm still leaning towards plumbing these two systems together to simplify things...

only real con at this point in my opinion:

1) if something goes bad all corals could be affected and at the moment the only real main concern is...pest eggs not caught in the dip/acclimation process of new corals

[allan]

When I got that red bug it did get to both systems. Of course the cure did as well.

I think outside what youre asking here is the business risk. How much does two systems add to your overhead vice that of the cost should you, worse case possibility, tank your investment in livestock. Your largest investment is in hardware (assuming here) so you'd have to figure out what the bottom line amount and contrast that to your increased cost in maintaining to systems.

I would imagine that if you were really infected you wouldn't be throwing stuff out and the treatment would be wholistic anyway.

Would you be picking your sps and softies from the same source? If so do they separate their livestock? Doesn't do you any good to separate I they don't.

I guess the bottom line for me is that I really enjoy the single system over that when we were running two systems. Too much work and your redundancy isn't redundant anymore unless you pony up that many more bucks.

Ping would be a good guy to ask as he had all seven seas represented in his office, tied to one system.

[Mr Cob]

thx Allan.

Coral comes from several sources. Up to 4. I think I'm comfortable with the risk of plumbing these two tanks together. Between myself, Jack and Harish we have other systems to source if ever needed, plus we don't go out of business if we lose all coral as we have a drygoods side of the business as well (wet acrylic).

[Mr Cob]

I also forgot to mention we have mother colonies in other systems as well.

[allan]

Rob, if you like you can take a look at mine. Learn from my mistakes if you will.

I made plenty.

Jack has seen it, I've since then hard piped the once-frag tank into the sump.

[Mr Cob]

man I'd like that...long overdue bro.

I'll send you a PM and we'll see when's a good time.

[kkiel02]

If you were trying to grow out your corals for fragging I would seperate them but if this is the "sale side", if that makes sense, I would just plumb them together as well. The reason I say this, as you already know, LPS and softies thrive in dirtier water than SPS. So in the long run you could frag more LPS and Softies from less prestine water than your SPS tank. But if you are just selling these items versus growing them out I dont think it would really be worth trying to keep two systems up and running.

Hope that made sense. lol