Here's where I finally had just fresh water in it trying everything and leak testing.
I quickly learned that because the water level in my skimmer section was lower than the water level in my refugium section it won the battle with gravity and I'd estimate 95% of the water goes to the skimmer section. Turns out that was a blessing in disguise. It first plumbed it as you see in the earlier post with 2 ball valves after the T. I never was able to balance the system out. I ended up cutting in a gate valve above the T and it works great now.