[Delphinus]

When I was in the planning stages of my current 75g, I was bent on using only one pump to drive both my sump return and my skimmer. It works, but now that I have it in place and hindsight is 20/20, I'm not so sure I'd really recommend this approach. It works, but the two goals are almost mutually exclusive. You want flow through your sump return, but you want pressure for your skimmer. So what I found was, in order to get any function out of my skimmer, I had to close my sump outlet valve, which increased the line pressure and thus gets the skimmer going, but it reduces the flow from the sump. So to really get the most of both goals, I think a bigger pump is needed, but then you're not getting the most of that one pump.

Thus it's possible a person might be further ahead to look at, say, two mag drive pumps.

I guess the flip side is that even if you found a good deal, it's not so economical usually to buy two of them.

So I guess it is a bit of a tradeoff.

I've heard good things about the Quiet Ones ... they're certainly a lot quieter than my mini turbine (aka Little Giant 4)..