Yeah you'll need some way of equalizing the flow from the chambers on the two sides.

Those pumps will all have slightly different head pressure and will in no way all flow exactly the same amount and the water will not magically flow from the socks to each side to match exactly what the pumps on each side are using. There is no theory to support it otherwise, just wishful thinking. My advise, fix it now rather than later. Personally would have just left a 1/2" gap under all baffles.

Leaving a gap defeats the purpose of the baffles entirely, once it gets a FW test it will be getting drained out into my pool or pond anyways as I still have a TON of work to do.

Here's a FSS........

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/x...psab8e8f68.jpg

wow, started going through your thread and couldn't stop - this is quite a project and looks amazing!

Thanks Noy, wish it was closer to completion but there is still a whole bunch more to do yet.

Does that mean you are going to use dry rocks?

Well yes and no, I have about 100 lbs of dry marco rock and around 400 - 500 of dry once live rock plus what is in the 165 gal tank now. I have most of the marco rock in the sump of the 165 gal getting seeded. Once the new tank is running salty I will move the marco rock out of the 165 gal sump to the 300 & add some hand picked dry OLR to the 165 gal sump to seed until I have the new tank aquascaped to my liking. Once I'm satisfied and have all the fish moved in I am going to boil all the rock left and reseed in the 300 to use in the 100 gal FOWLR that is next to build after this is done.

LIST OF TO DO YET

1. fill test run
2. add the 2 end towers
3. move over my diy LED heatsinks
4. run 2 - 20amp dedicated power circuits
5. build electrical control center in the left tower
6. set up my Profilux 3EX controller with Touch screen, 2 PAB 6 power bars,Temp/Ph/Redox/Salinity probes, 4 channel doser, LAN card & EVG control boards for the LED's.
7. finish rebuilding 60 gal cube & hook into system
8. build auto water change system and ato
9. sound proofing & build cabinet incloser

There are a few more things but that what come to the top of my head atm.

Wow that sump is a work of art.

That's a lot of dry rock you'll be using. You may already be aware of this but a word to the wise regardless - expect phosphates and lots of it. I think it's getting to be more and more recognized that dry rock emits phosphates like crazy but even two years ago when I got my 280g going it wasn't really a universally recognized thing. 2.5 years in for me and I still have massive PO4 coming out of nowhere if I let the GFO slide. A bit disappointing because it's a much bigger expense than I expected. I'm considering building a lanthanum reactor at some point to experiment and compare results.

Tanks Tony, yes I am expecting some PO4 but have been able to control it in the current display with GFO and Vertex pellets. I have 3 NextReef MR1 reactors that will be plumbed in to one of the DC5000. Don't Know exactly how much rock I will end up using in the display but I want to keep it to a min to allow lots of swim room for the monster tang squad.

That's frickin AWESOME
Few shillings in fitting too........