Brett,
The reason you got 50+ joints sealed without a drip is that you, obviously, know what you are doing. One day, when I'm all growed up, I'd like to have a tank as neatly layed out, equipment-wise, as yours. Even better to see your now that it has a reef in it.
I'm so glad that the ring injector worked out in your application. It is hard to know how it might turn out, as far as output, since there are so many nuances in the system parameters that can effect it. By the pictures I'd say that you achieved excellent results, and without pulling enough micro bubbles back into the display tank as to be a distraction for the easily-distractable. That is a "problem" with mine when I really push it wide open.
One thing I expected in my air-lift system was a lot of cryptic-type creatures, especially sponges, along the collection tank (the equivalent of the lower part of your Eco Wheel tank) walls and maybe even in the piping. After 10 months with the air lift it hasn't happened. I haven't read Tyree's zonal filtration books, and maybe I'm missing how this is suppose to work. Maybe I need to buy and add some high-flow sponges and tunicates from DE to seed the system and then see what happens. What I do get that is unusual (compared to many tanks) is a wall of feather dusters (hundreds of them) near the 2' long inlet strainer inside the tank. I've harvested them back recently to keep the inlet from getting overgrown to the point of resticting water flow. But my water still yellows without carbon and I have no reason to believe that I'm supporting filter-feeders better than any other reasonably successful reef keeper not using an air lift.
I hope you'll update this thread periodically over the next couple of years. Once again, best of luck (As if you need it!).
