It would be nice, but he is six doors away, downhill from us too.
I know you get a kick out of some of the things I've done. Especially my cheap ways of getting certain things accomplished.
Back home I had a large aquarium in my living room behind and over the couch. I could clean it from the adjoining room where nothing was in the way, or what was shoved in that room was movable, hi hi.
After I changed it to saltwater, I needed larger sumps and much more equipment, like protein skimmers, etc.
A water pump for aquariums, especially the affordable ones, do not have much of a head (the amount of height the pump can lift water). I needed to raise the water fourteen feet. The only pumps which can do this are well pumps, which provide way more water than I needed for an aquarium. I didn't want to wash the gravel out of tank, hi hi...
I finally did find one which would work for me, but the price was like 700 dollars.
I found a solution which counting all the parts necessary came to around 75 bucks.
I used five little powerhead pumps, each with a four foot head, but used them to only lift the water three feet each.
I hung two chains from the ceiling near the wall, and between the chains mounted a rectangular plastic food container box with a pump in each one, and the sump on the floor under them. Water was pumped from the sump to the first box three feet above it, a pump in the first box pumped the water to the box three feet above it, and so on and so forth up to the sump under the aquarium upstairs.
The flowrate of the water was just right for my needs, and the power consumption of the five little pumps was minimal compared to what the 700 dollar pump would have used.
I didn't need to worry about overflow or siphon airlock problems because I didn't use them. If a box did overflow, it ran down the chain and right back into the sump with no overspray. If an upper box overflowed, it went into the box below it first anyhow. But when the system was running, it balanced itself fairly well, so I had no pumps sucking air and no containers overflowing. I guess I just lucked out on that one.
