Air manifold vs loop - large capacity manifold?

[TOtrees]

Some time between now and xmas I'm going to be renovating my small fish room. Moving everything into next room temporarily, tear it all down, and build it back better. 

My current setup runs on a linear air pump on a closed loop. My plan is to set up a temporary pump and manifold in the other room to power all my air needs while renovating. I have the pump covered, but am wondering about air connections. I know that a basic small diameter manifold will give unequal pressures via nozzles near and far from the source. Every time you add or adjust a line, all the others need (re)adjusting. 

Does anyone know if I can get around that manifold weakness if I make/use a bigger manifold? Like say an 8ft section of 3" pvc? Would that basically work the same as a loop, or provide similar benefits? Or 2" pvc even? Bear in mind it'll only be for a couple days. But also bear in mind, if the principle is sound I might build the new room with large diameter non-loop, as opposed to the 1.5" loop I currently have. Less fittings/connections. 

Edited September 9 by TOtrees

[Tony s]

Theoretically it should work fine. You’re basically building yourself a reserve air tank. And relieving the in-line pressure that a small diameter manifold would have. You may have to be our Guinea pig though.  😄  Let us know if it works.

[Phirefase]

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: depends. The whole deal with why outlets farther from air pumps have less airflow than ones that are closer is because as the air moves down the PVC pipe, it loses pressure due to friction with the pipe. Using a larger pipe for the air to flow through leads to less friction loss because the air is actually moving slower. Now, without knowing the specifics of your situation(how many outlets, number of tanks, lengths of airline and length of pvc) there isn't a way to give sizes for piping. Also, friction loss isn't linear ie, a 2" pipe has closer to 1/4x the friction loss of a 1" pipe. If you want to get turbo nerdy, you could look into using the Hazen-Williams or Darcy-Weisbach equation to figure out the pipe diameter you'd need.