Originally Posted by
loverboy
It certainly could work but I believe everyone has his/her owns needs and preference. (not being antagonistic here) What I am trying to say is that first of all I didn't want this fishroom to be a "central" type of system because as many of you know, discus are quite prone to diseases from other tanks. And if I were to use the fill pipes as drain pipes as well then this would become somewhat of a "central" system (not the filtering of course).
I was once told by a LFS owner that when he was building pipes he forgot to install a backflow preventer onto the system. One day when he's done filling 1 of his top level tanks that has some heavy slime produced by some sick discus, he forgot to turn back the ball-valve switch. (maybe running out of water in the storage tank b4 the targeted tank was fully filled I guess?) Water from that tank flowed back into the storage tank and all the filling pipes. A few days later he started noticing similar "slimes" in many, if not all, of his tanks. This is one of the reasons why I didn't want to use the fill pipes as drain pipes (not because it requires a pump though) as I want them to stay as "individual" tanks. Again, it's just my preference and I have nothing against the use of any other designs. It's all good!
Thanks, Kenny