Best way to do a closed loop?

[pomme]

Best way to do a closed loop?

I am going to be setting up a 7x2.5(wide)x2(high), tank which will be conected to a sump in the garge.

I will have a Deltec 4040 pump as a return and have 2 6000 Streams and 2 6100 Streams, and this will give me around 39x turnover, but i am wanting to have some closed loops on the tank as well.

I am wanting the tank to go up against the back wall so dont want the piping to go up and over. I will use some more Deltec Hlp 4040 pumps for the closed loop as these will be nearly all that will be under the cabinet and they are so quiet

But as the tank has a double glass layer for the bottom, is it still okay to drill through this, as surely it would add to the risk of the tank cracking.

I am hoping for the return to go back through the bottom of the tank, but am unsure about the feed to the pump, whats the best place for it to be, is it okay to be from the bottom as well? and whats good to use to stop fish, crabs and snails going down to the pump.

Thanx for the help guys
Cheers
Andrew

[reefrunner69]

Most drill the sides or the back for a closed loop. I would drill the bottom of that tank. You can use bulkhead screens to keep fish and inverts out of the CLS, but you want the intake to be accessable for maintenance.

[fishfreek]

I would take the safer route and drill the back. You could drill multiple intakes for the closed loop at different levels of the water and have multiple outlets for the closed loop at different intervals.

[pomme]

would it be a good idea to have the intakes up the top at the back and then the returns lower down so pushing the water under the rockwork?

[reefrunner69]

If it were me, I would draw from the bottom of the aquarium and return to several areas of varying height, make sure though that there are 2-4 returns blowing across the bottom, sweeping the detritus into suspension for removal by the overflow and skimmer.

[pomme]

yeah i was thinking of having it so that there were 3 closed loops so, will need to have 6 holes in the bottom

and was thinkof having it like this :



where the left and right hand side returns will be 1/3 of the way out from the back wall and the middle one will be at the back wall, as i am going to have two rock structures which come out, with the left large then the right, which are connected.