125g Planted Discus Tank Build

[Stussi613]

Haven't posted in a while, but I'm looking for a bit of advice from the club.  I recently moved and have WAY more room in my new house than I did in the old one...so I managed to convince the wife that it's a good idea to switch from the 60g short we have to a 125g.  Picked up the tank from a club member who was downsizing and I'm getting ready to start the build up.

The tank had a previous life as a marine tank and is already drilled in the middle and both corners and came with all the plumbing to connect to and block off excess holes.  The person I got it from had two filters on it and used the holes in the bottom rather than having hoses up the back.  I'm going to be using a Rena xp4 filter, which is rated for up to a 265g tank, and instead of having a filter inlet and outlet on either side of the tank connect to each filter, I was going to use one inlet and then have the outlet hose split off and go into the tank on either side.  I'll probably then use the extra inlet holes to connect a 25 foot hose to and use for water changes.  Since I have nearly no experience with this I thought I would ask if anyone sees a problem with this?  Should I have an equal number of inlets and outlets to maximize water flow to/from the filter? 

The idea I had looks sort of like this:

   ------------------------------------------
   |     o < Drain      0   o     To Filter > o     |
   | o  < From Filter                                o |
   |                                       From Filter ^|
   |                                                        |
   |                                                        |
   |                                                        |
   |                                                        |
   |                                                        |
   ------------------------------------------

I could add a second hose to go to the filter in one of the other available holes pretty easily, but I'm not sure I really need to.  Would love some advice if anyone has any.

[fischkopp]

Looking forward to see this project progressing. Will be a great setup. Your plans seem to be alright, I have seen a discus setup like this here in town (and you might be having the very tank) and it worked great. Make sure everything is pressure tight, any leak would be fatal. You could add a valve (better double-tap valve) to both of the return paths to allow for some flow control.

[Stussi613]

Looking forward to see this project progressing. Will be a great setup. Your plans seem to be alright, I have seen a discus setup like this here in town (and you might be having the very tank) and it worked great.

Yeah, I picked the tank up from her because she needed to downsize, I don't know if I was happier to get it, or she was sadder to have to get rid of it...

Make sure everything is pressure tight, any leak would be fatal. You could add a valve (better double-tap valve) to both of the return paths to allow for some flow control.

I was toying around with the idea of just capping the plumbing off to get rid of the risk of leaks, but at the end of the day she had it running the same way for quite some time and nothing happened so I'm going to take the leap of faith.  I'm not sure that there's any more risk involved if the seals are tight and the connections are properly teflon taped and tightened than if I was to cap everything off.  Having holes in the tank adds that level of risk whether you use them or not.  All of the connections have municipal grade shut offs on them, and I think I could use them to control flow if I need to.