55 Gal FOWLR - seeking criticism

[turbo]

Okay so hello again. I have to admit I failed pretty badly with plumbing this thing in. First thing was getting past the guy at the LFS (because he also sells the PVC and fittings and stuff - more of the 1" product than Home Depot carries).

He thought it was a terrible idea to have a direct-feed from the overflow to the protein skimmer. He said that it was wrong, not the way "we" do things, my house will flood, oh well hardwood floor isn't so bad, so is the aquarium in the basement? on and on lol. Finally he sold me the stuff I wanted. According to him, I need two pumps minimum (one return and one feeding the skimmer) and the skimmer must reside in the sump.

And as I got about building I had to change up some of the original design on the fly (partly because my vinyl hose is NOT flexible enough) and partly because my cabinet is so narrow that to avoid the structural members I actually had to drill my drain holes in a vertical line rather than beside one another.

So I actually teed the two 1" PVC drains into one 3/4" vinyl hose, because that matches the inlet on the skimmer. So, uh... is this bad or what? Does it defeat the purpose of having two drains... or is it GOOD because we will see high pressure coming from this hose into the protein skimmer???




the other dry-assembled contraption there is the return piping.



and finally...