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Pump Trick

By wolfstanbjord

Simple trick that I cant remember being explained for connecting tanks.

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wolfstanbjord
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Category: Gameplay Basics

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

1 Feb, 2019 @ 8:42am

3 Feb, 2019 @ 11:20am

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Guide Index

Overview

Pumps connect the water in each tank.

Comments

Pumps connect the water in each tank.

So this is a trick I didn't know about, nor can I remember it being covered in the intro.

Basically, pumps will connect the water in each of the tanks. So tank A has a heater on its side and is attached to tank B via pump. Because a pump connects the two, tank B is now heated.

In the image above you can see how I attached two big heaters and a large filter to the tank on the extreme left. All the rest of the tanks are connected via pumps. Since this means all water is now shared between the tanks, one can see fish in perfect health on the tank to the extreme right.

Please note that hot and cold water is also shared, so you should only connect hot tanks to hot tanks and cold to cold. Also, this trick can only be done with the larger pumps that one can unlock at level 5.

In a few cases this can benefit you by connecting multiple tanks together in odd setups. Perhaps you have lots of room next to one tank but another that's in a tight space; using a pump one can connect the two and gain all the benefits of the large space without having to cram much more than a pump between them.

You can see above how the pump connects both the Small Kreisel Tank and the Large Chicago Tank. I use the extra heat generated from the heaters on the side of the Chicago tank to heat the Kreisel tank with the pump connecting the two in the middle.

The setup below is purely theoretical. I set it up to show how far you could take the concept in a few minutes.

This tank set up could theoretically support over the 7 tanks for a total of 1386 fish size.
By using the deep outcrop tank I can connect 10 large combination filters to the tank and then pump that water to the others. One could even in true refugium fashion add water filtering objects like live rocks, plants and such to help boost the water quality even more.

30 Comments

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wolfstanbjord [author] 12 Jul @ 8:37pm

@THE-DIESEL999 Thanks for the compliment!

THE-DIESEL999 12 Jul @ 7:28pm

Holy cow! This is an amazing trick! Thank you for sharing!!

wolfstanbjord [author] 10 Jul @ 2:34pm

@Kaze Glad to hear it! It really does simplify a lot and lets you keep your employees jobs closer together.

Kaze 10 Jul @ 4:37am

This has been a complete game changer for me. Instead of trying to have multiple backstage areas, I can really make a single private zone. One big long room in the middle, with multiple tanks along the outside, and the public goes in a circle around all the tanks. With a couple arrows, managing them is a lot easier!

wolfstanbjord [author] 27 Apr @ 9:18am

@Thorned Rose Thanks for the compliment! I am glad its still a relevant guide and helping people think outside the tank as it were!

Thorned Rose 26 Apr @ 8:42pm

Derp! I have aquariums and I'm very familiar with sumps and refugiums. I thought about the possibility of doing this in the game but for some reason my brain just didn't apply it. Thanks for this guide! It's opened a whole bunch of possibilities!

wolfstanbjord [author] 12 Feb, 2024 @ 5:27pm

@princess bimbette Thanks! I am surprised this guide is still useful 5 years later.

Nymphiiah.ttv 11 Feb, 2024 @ 8:51pm

I think I started to put this together, that the pumps share water between tanks, but I never would have thought to go to this extent -- this is genius and I am very much trying it on my next run! hahah thank you!

wolfstanbjord [author] 27 Dec, 2023 @ 1:09pm

@Zac Quicksilver, yes a good point. I found that with all my pumps clustered like this repair wasn't a big deal to stay on top of. I haven't played in awhile so I never got around to updating for anything.

Zac Quicksilver 26 Dec, 2023 @ 4:54pm

The one thing you skip over in this guide is the value of the larger machines: the 1x1 machines have 40 power and require repair every 5 or 6 days; while the 2x2 machines have 220 power and require repair every 3 or 4 days. By using half as many 2x2 machines, you get over 2.5 times as much power (80 vs 220) and need half as much repair (1 repair every 3 or 4 days, compared to 4 repairs every 5 or 6 days). Using pumps to connect tanks will often let you replace smaller machines with larger ones, meaning fewer repairs.

That said, while I've made good use of the above to reduce the upkeep on my aquariums, I never though to make a "backstage" tank with a massive load of machines connected to it to extend that value. I've normally just attached one of the largest pumps to connect tanks, and then 1x1 pumps with 4 machines attached to boost the power. However, reading the guide and some of the comments have given me new ideas about how to make use of tanks plus pumps.

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