2-tank sump/fuge?

No...it is not set up at all yet. I am waiting till I have everything in place before I move it from the garage to the house and start putting water into it.

It came to me unbraced at all, had been a freshwater stand so I know that it will support a decient amount of weight however I will be adding supports to the stand when I figure out the final design of the whole thing. The shelves were supported with the standard metal shelf bracket, the kind you would use for your kitchen cabinets. I plan on putting some 2x2s or something to that effect under the shelf to actually support the weight.

As for the stacking, yes and no. As you can tell from the dimentions I do not have a lot of room to work with, so as much as I dont want to I may end up sumpless for a while (which is fine, I am not looking to rush into corals so it will be fish only for a while). The plan was to put both the 10gal tanks in the cabinet side, I should be able to offset the stacking eough (maybe by hanging part out the back) to fit a skimmer of almost any height and just have it down a lot closer to the bottom tank which i planned on as a fuge. May end up with a box store LED or an eBbay LED strip in order to save on space

 

My setup is pretty similar to this and it seems to be working well so far. Granted, tank is still cycling so I don't have any evidence on how effective it is for live stock. But, mechanically it's working and seems to be pretty consistent.

 

You reall yneed to distribute the weight of the tank to the floor with posts/columns. If the tank is supported witha shelf that is just attached to the side of a board, it is not going to hold. And just because it held another tank, does not mean it will hold yours. Perhaps he sold it to you 3 months before it woas going to come crashing down. Your 55g will weigh 440 lbs. you really need to make sure it is bearing the weight right. An entertainment center is not a tank stand.

I would still do a sump. you do not need a fuge. Just put a box below to house the skimmer and heater and call it good. It is so much better than a HOB anything.

 

Gravity is a beautiful thing in this hobby... and the only thing that is completely free. I am actually doing the same thing currently- adding a 10 gallon fuge slightly above my sump so gravity can return the water back to my sump and up to my 55gal DT. My return pump that feeds back to my display tank goes through a UV sterilizer- will this defeat the purpose or will pods still make a safe journey back to the tank?

 

Bumping my post a little here, sorry...dont get on a lot right now with work and the holidays.

Tank and stand are out in the garage, but thanks to my local reef board I have my sand and my rock. Got the sand from someones DSB fuge and left it in the water...although its been in the garage where is been cold so I am not planning on that keeping anything in it. Other reefer had his tank go full of green stuff and is getting out of the hobby for a while...put his rock outside and killed everything, sold it for $1 per lb. So I am ready to go, just have to wait for her to move the furnature for Christmas so I can see where I can put the tank.

As for what all have said, yes I know that the stand isnt the best option...but I have a vision with this and I am going to follow it through. I am going to add some 2x2s or 4x4 under the top piece to brace the tank better. Also going to put some bracing on the bottom of the stand to help distribute the weight better across the floor. The plan is to hide/disguise as much of this as possble, so painting it black is a must as well. In regards to the sump/fuge system, I got a HOB skimmer on clearance at a local pet store so I am going to roll with that to start the tank. Still have a vision of a DIY sump/fuge setup using gravity as my friend. Probably cant describe this well with words, but I am going to try.

Gravity feed down PVC to a DIY acrilic box/tower. Comes in on a drip plate, to some bioballs (maybe) then drips down a declined acrilic piece, to another acrilic piece declined the other way into a fuge. One (maybe 2) PVC lines on a very slight decline to the 10gal. Baffles in the tank for the elimination of macrobubbles, to the return area. Plan is to have retrun area not much deeper then the return pump to allow for maxium water storage in case of a power outage