Help... Designing Plumbing Plan

[juke]

Please share with me your expertice/advise on my thought's for how I would like to plumb my tank/sump. I call it a closed/open loop. Here is what I am thinking:

I have a 25 gallon tank w/ an 18gal sump/refuge. I currently am running 2 MaxiJet 1200's in my tank with no sump hooked up yet. I was looking for a fairly low cost simple system to provide flow for the tank from the sump and remove the powerheads. I would like to use a single HOT overflow w/ 1" out to the sump. From the return chamber I would like to use a pump directly up to a SCWD and split to both sides of the tank for return.

My question's are:

1. is this a good design? Can you see problems? What should change to be better?
2. What type of pump should I use for good flow into the tank? I was thinking a MagDrive 9.5
3. How low should I plumb the return lines into the tank? At about the same height as a powerhead or lowere on one side?
4. Any thing else? Is this just insane newbie pipe dreams?

Thanks in advance,
Josh

[Geoff]

the concept itself is not that bad. there are a couple of concerns before you jump right into it. a 1000gph overflow is pretty big. you might want to look at one and get the dimensions before you decide the PH are ugly.

what kind of skimmer do you have? if you are going to put the skimmer in the sump you may have to think about bubbles. with such a small sump the velocity of water through it will be pretty great. any bubbles exiting the skimmer will get exported into the display.

for the outlets you will want to drill a small hole just below the water line. this hole will keep the outlets from becoming siphons and draining your tank. when the water level drops below the holes air will sneak in and break the siphon.

G~