Plumbing a reef and fowlr together?

[discretekarma]

I currently have a 50 reef and a 30 frag tank plumbed together with a trigger ruby sump (30~ gallons I think) in my basement. I want to add a 75 gallon fowlr in the family room directly above the other tanks. The only way my wife would agree is if the fowlr is plumbed to the basement for water changes, ato, testing, etc. The only thing that’ll be done up there is feeding the fish (in theory). 
 

I was thinking that the additional 75 gallons and 80~ pounds of live rock would out weigh the negative load that the fish in the fowlr would add. Is this correct or do I need a separate sump in the basement for the fowlr?

 

It’ll have a bubble magus 7 in the sump. I also have a bubble magus 5 if I need to run the fowlr separately. I would just need to buy a sump. 

Edited March 8, 2020 by discretekarma

[discretekarma]

I was thinking about having the overflow of the 75 split in to the 30 and 50 as their supply, then they’d overflow to the sump and return would just go back the the 75 upstairs.

[discretekarma]

Guess not. Figured it was worth a shot to check.

[treesprite]

I personally wouldn't  do it, because if one tank goes, they all go.

[discretekarma]

Thanks for your input. I’ll likely add a separate sump in the basement next to the reef sump in that case. To make water changes easier, thoughts on pumping water from my reef sump during it’s water changes in to the fowlr sump next to it for the fowlr changes? I imagine the reef water coming out would be fine for the fowlr. If that makes sense.

[flooddc]

You can certainly plumb multiple tanks into a single sump provided that the sump can handle the water volume when the return pump is turned off or when there’s  a power outage. 
reef + Fowlr is essentially no different than a reef rank with lots of fish. Just need to bigger skimmer that will process heavier load.  
Currently, I have 2 tanks (anemone tank and a mixed reef plumbed into a sump.

My two previous tanks (125 and 150g) were also plumb into a single sump.
This enable me to do a single water changes once a month.

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by flooddc