I'm with Chad here- NO silicone. It will lube the gasket and its too easy to squish it out. UNLESS its an AGE tank with routed out bottom plate for large Hayward Hex head bulkheads, in which case I use a good dose of DC795

I do put a good dose on after the BH is tight though.
I have worked on those large Dresser FRP pumps quite a bit. Ours were IIRC 25HP and 2000GPM.
I would skip the RK2 skimmers. Too many watts for the skimming you get. Get a bank of ATBs and get better skimming for less watts & better technology.
I'm a huge fan of OMs and closed loops. Theres no reason you cant put all the plumbing down from the top and hide it with rockwork- no penetrations.
You have to be able to get powerheads out to service them, and hiding them with rockwork makes that a royal pain, IMO.
I think waveboxes are garbage too.

There I said it

I have never seen one make the tank look natural (too fast), and they do really nothing as far as "real" flow. They simply rock the tank back and forth an inch or two. I would much rather have real port to port flow across the tank. Just my opinion.
My all time favorite though is still the ball valve surge. When I finish my upgrade, it will use a ball valve surge feeding through an OM 4way
