[SaltwaterGeek]

OK, I did some thinking last night, and I have decided NOT to go with a closed loop system. I do think they are very trick and clean looking, and I might do one in the future, but for this build I decided against doing one for 2 reasons.

1. Space. This build is already space restrictive. The deal I have with the wife is that I can spend the money that I want, as long as she can pick the place to put it. With that being said, she chose an area in our breakfast nook. Having a 48x30x24 is the absolute biggest tank I can put there without making that area really look like crap. Not wanting to sacrifice any further tank space, means that I have no room for any extra plumbing.

So I will be going with some internal powerheads.

2. Possible Leaking. One of the reasons I chose to go with an acrylic tank was to drastically reduce the chance of a compromised seam, or manufacturers defect. Not like anyone wants a leak, but I have zero room to have any type of leak. This tank will be on the second floor so leaking is not an option.

So...... I feel we are making some progress here. We have the tank material, tank size, and how we are going to get flow... Now I just have to decide whether or not to compromise more width by going with a coast to coast, or just to do a central overflow and have some more tank space. The coast to coast definitely is more trick and clean, but then I would loose 18 gallons of internal space... This is going to be a hard one.....