Tank plumbing design - need your help!

[zoomin]

I have just received my custom acrylic from socalcustoms. It's made to fit on a particular peice of "wife acceptable" furniture, so is an odd size at 32x18x24tall or ~50Gallons.

 

It has a large centre overflow with a 1.5" standpipe and a 1" return hole.

 

My plan was to plumb all through the bottom of the tank, drilling more holes for a 2 or 4 way closed loop. Recently, however, I've read numerous posts where people advise against this practice, as adding "one more place of potential failure/leakage".

 

I also am worried about how much room I have under the tank for all the plumbing, sump, etc.

 

So, I have almost convinced myself to go simple, and just buy a larger return pump (~1500 GPH) and use a seaswirl or wavysea device on the return(return split 2 or four ways), hopefully getting enough flow through this simplified design.

 

My current tank inhabitants (in a 32g Finnext m-tank) are ready to move in, they are:

 

Frogspwan

Bubble Coral

Xenia

GSP

Mushrooms

Crocea Clam

Yellow polyps

Various Zoanthus

6" RBTA

Coco Worm

2xFalse Percs

Yellow Watchman Goby

Green Clown Goby

Cleaner Shrimp

Pistol Shrimp

8 snails

2 hitchhiker crabs

 

 

Your input greatly appreciated!

[Socalsuperhero]

I have just received my custom acrylic from socalcustoms. It's made to fit on a particular peice of "wife acceptable" furniture, so is an odd size at 32x18x24tall or ~50Gallons.

 

It has a large centre overflow with a 1.5" standpipe and a 1" return hole.

 

My plan was to plumb all through the bottom of the tank, drilling more holes for a 2 or 4 way closed loop. Recently, however, I've read numerous posts where people advise against this practice, as adding "one more place of potential failure/leakage".

 

I also am worried about how much room I have under the tank for all the plumbing, sump, etc.

 

So, I have almost convinced myself to go simple, and just buy a larger return pump (~1500 GPH) and use a seaswirl or wavysea device on the return(return split 2 or four ways), hopefully getting enough flow through this simplified design.

 

I plumbed my tank as much as possible through the bottom because I was tired of seeing plumbing. I would do it again to, especially with an acrylic tank. My recommendation wouble be for a smaller return pump and a closed loop with a 2 or 4 way squirt.

[Sinistard]

If you plumb in the bottom you might want to use schedule 80 bulkheads. They are a lot more heavy duty and less likely to leak or crack. Keep in mind that if you do use schedule 80s they require a larger hole then the schedule 40 bulkhead.