Hi Doug,
A little over $1400 was the disaster vs. excursion.
I also tried to plan out all the isolation paths for the OM, pumps and tank. The amount of SE union ball valves is what is driving up the cost tremendously but I also just watched a fellow local reefer destroy all the fittings that he had on a recent purchase of a used starphire tank because the previous owner used slip bulkheads and ballvalves with no unions. I find that it is cheaper if you go with compact ball valves and individual unions but it just makes everything bigger and longer than it needs to be.
I bought common fittings from my local Home Depot & Lowes (HD only had slip ball valves & Lowes had only true union ones which I didn't think I needed plus they looked really bulky) and I ordered all my single union ball valves with other misc. fittings from:
http://www.savko.com/partlist.asp?pgid=1
and topped it off with some parts from Custom Aquatics. Like for instance on the back wall 1.5" drains, I originally bought a male threaded adapter and then a spigot x slip street el to complete a 90 degree slip fitting, then I find that Custom Aquatics has street el's that are MPT x slip, so I ordered those also to reduce the amount of plumbing parts and overall space that all these various fittings will take up.
LOL, by the time I'm done with adapters, valves, unions, I won't have any room for spa-flex!
The Dart is planned for the closed loop. The AM2100 is planned as the return for the two 3/4" Sea-Swirls and a tee off for the EV-120 for now.(I couldn't bear the thought of an additional 70 watt/2 degree pump in my sump) (I know this has to be upgraded, EV that is)
Right now the way I understand it, the Dart is a low pressure pump with high flow and the AM2100 is not a pressure rated pump but good for circulation.
I did order the magnetic 4-way as opposed to the standard, it just didn't pay to save $30 and have a drive shaft break from sand or debris whereas the magnetic version has no shaft to break. I chose ver 2 as opposed to ver 1 due to the limited overall size of my tank. Based on the 24" depth, I didn't want any corals to get a 2000 gph current thrust.
The bare bottom/starboard is something I'm willing to try. I've used a 4-5" plenum sand bed on a past softie tank and currently a very shallow 3/4" sand bed and the detritus is hard to keep up with. I also need to stir the shallow bed every few weeks or it starts to get stiff. Another factor in my decision was also the sand being stirred up and jamming the drum on the OM and the abuse on the direct drive pump seals.
