Marc,
You have been a tremendous source of information and support. I really appreciate your excellent work! Thanks for everything! I am sure that I will be asking many more questions over the coming months.
The skimmer is a Reef Concepts aerofoamer 830. There is an Iwaki 70RLT dedicated to the skimmer. The head is not screwed on yet because the brace that holds the side cabinet together needs to be cutout to allow room for the skimmer head. The head is actually just the neck which then sends the skimmate to the collection cup pictured under the skimmer. The Aerofoamer is a Beckett style skimmer that I have seen in action. It is extremely well made and produces extremely fine microbubbles.
The complexity of the system is due to three reasons.
1. Automation. The system can drain water from the tank through the closed loop in seconds and refill with fresh saltwater in a few minutes. This added additional plumbing lines to the sump area and the top of the tank.
2. Quiet & Clean. I placed all the pumps, chiller, UV and much of the plumbing outdoors behind the tank to minimize noise, mess, salt creep, and humidity. This made the system somewhat more complicated but added the advantage of space and ease of maintenance.
3. Flexibility. I wanted a system with all the bells and whistles, but also the ability to bypass them if I felt they were not needed. I had installed a UV, chiller, ozone, dosing system, Calcium Reactor, Phosphate Reactor, Filter bag, probes, refugium, topoff, etc. Many of these systems require slower water turnover than the rest of the system and therefore the use of ball valves in many locations. The subsystems bleed off water from the return pump as needed. Or I can simply close the valves and bypass the component as needed.
I am running two Iwaki 70 RLT. One for the skimmer and one for the return pump. I am running a Sequence Barracuda for the closed loop with an actuated valve to create intermittent flow. I can add Tunze's with controller if additional circulation is necessary or I find dead spots.
There will be three aquascaped sections of the tank. The center will have an island built over the closed loop intake. The two sides will have caves and ledges. I am looking for a mixed tank environment that will be home to a variety of fish including a Grey angel from my 90 gallon, a Moorish Idol from my 90, a pair of gold stripe maroon clowns from my 54, a rockskipper, niger trigger, a pair of sleeper gobies, a sohol tang, pair of hippo tangs, assorted anthias, maybe my baby tusk, assorted wrasses, Spotted Mandarin Goby, etc.
I have a yellow tang, lionfish, spotted puffer, wolf eel, flame angel that are not right for the new tank. I will probably have to give them away when I break down my 54 & 90 gallon tanks.
As far as corals go, I would like to have about 50-60% sps and the rest LPS and soft. I love clams and would really like to keep them. I am concerned though that many "reef safe" fish pick on them. I have also found that my cleaner shrimp crawled all over the clams and caused them to close up much of the time. I love shrimp as part of the aquarium, but I will definitely wait on the cleaners.
I know that some of the fish I mentioned are not considered reef safe. However, I am willing to risk some losses in order to have them. I have found that most fish will leave the corals alone if you feed them well enough. Except for open brains. These corals seem to attract all kinds of fish and inverts to pick on them.
Water check tomorrow!!!