Well, I've been checking the ph of my closed loop intake "fake" rock. It's ready to go into the tank. I cut up some eggcrate and pressure fitted it into the abs fitting. Here are some pictures.
My tank is now 90% full, but I can't run it with the sump until I get probably about 50 more gallons of water out of my RO unit. I put the rock in the tank and this is how it looks.
And just for fun I started up the wavemaker to get the water moving and here are some pictures for an idea of how high the wave is. Just look at the angle of the water.
As soon as I started up the wavemaker, particulate matter from the sand became suspended. So I guess it's working.
I also added a heater in the main display with the water motion so that at least the tank is not ice cold when I start salting the tank.
I turned on the OM 4way with the dart on full blast for a while and put my hand near the intake of my fake rock and I can barely feel any suction at all. I think I did pretty well in trying to spread the intake flow out over a larger area, this was my goal in the first place in making my fake rock.