[travis32]

Well, I received my aquarium from Customaquariums.com using a steel stand and the aquarium is approximately 333 gallons. 69 Inches long, 31" tall, and 36" wide.

I'm going to use their H20 Overflow stealth box overflow system that increases tank space and eliminates the need for corner overflows!

The tank was all pre-drilled with 1.5" overflows (and fittings) And 2 1/2 inch return lines.

I'm planning to build a manifold into the plumbing to potentially provide a turf scrubber at some point, and/or for any other reactors etc I need down the line. With 4 outputs, 1 to the tank for a return, and 3 auxilary outputs.

My question (to start) is the two returns are inside diameter of 1/2". The overflows are 1.5 Inch. My return pump is an external barracuda pump with 1.5" plumbing. So, at what point on the return do I reduce down to 1/2" plumbing and / or do I go down gradually? A few feet of 1" then down to 1/2" when I split it off into two outputs?

It came with the 1/2" hose barbs. So, I'm planning to use PVC until I split the lines. THen use a Y fitting with 1/2" hose barbs on one side and 1" or 1.5" fitting on the connecting side. And use flex hose on the two lines going to the tank.

It seems to me like reducing the returns this much would pressurize the waterflow?

On the overflow side I'm going to merge the two 1.5" lines into one 1.5" line as well as I have around 15-20 foot runs to the sump.

I can't really change the 1/2" returns to be larger, unless I drill them out further, which I'm not really willing to do. Just seems odd to me that the combined size of the returns is smaller than the overflow, but maybe that's just the paranoid side of me?