Help with new tank design

Well, I've decided to upgrade my temperate tank from the 5.5 gallon (though it IS cute) to more of a 10 gallon size. One of the members of my local club does really nice acrylic work and is willing to make a (cheap!) tank for me using 1/2" acrylic - I just need to give him the specs. So any advice would be appreciated!

It can't be more than 20" wide and 12" high. I'm thinking either 12" or up to 14" deep? I have a 1/10 HP chiller, need a place for the skimmer (have a little Gnome Glass skimmer right now and would like to avoid buying something else though I will if I have to), and I'd love a place to drop a bag of carbon/gfo. He can cut a lid for me when he makes the tank, which makes me think I should go with a closed loop to plumb in the chiller. But then I have no place for the skimmer nor carbon. Suggestions? Pros and cons? As you can tell I'm definitely not an engineer......

Get a CTC (coast to coast ) weir and well built in the back with a 3 way fail safe full syphon overflow (bean animal overflow) and get your 5.5 converted into a sump ..Plenty of space for skimmer, bio, filters and charcoal, chiller etc etc..You can either run the wier to the bottom and plumb in under the tank or run plumbing down the back .

Or put a sump/weir combo in the back with room for skimmer and chiller plumbing

Here's what I came up with for her.

This would have minimum exposed plumbing by keeping the skimmer internal in the AIO overflow area.

You'd run the chiller on the two outer bulkhead holes with an external pump as a closed loop system.

Keeps it all in the same footprint as a 10 gallon tank, so you could use most available lighting options and 10 gallon stands to house the chiller below.

Thank you both! I'm now waiting for the estimate from a guy from my club who builds tanks.

Thats nice I would go for that ..I think too big for little tanks lol

Which type of temperate system do you plan for as in from which part of the world will you have species from?

I have two catalina gobies and the rest (anemonies, crabs, shrimp and algae) are from the Pacific Northwest. I've been running a 5.5 gallon with just gobies for a couple of years, and recently added the rest of the critters (thanks Stu and Josh!). I recently got the chiller, and figured I'd upgrade to get a little more real estate as well as to take advantage of the chiller and get more consistency in the temp.

That's good; there's quite a few species from there with small maximum sizes.

Yea, I have five SW tanks that are 29 gallons and smaller so always pay close attention to max size and bio load. And now it's going to be six - I'll be starting another small temperate now that somebody we know has a source for European species.....

Final quote for Stu's design is $100 with black acrylic for the overflow area and back. Since the chiller was free I'm pretty happy with the new build. A member of my local club is willing to let me play with his Sicce Syncra pump so I can figure out what I need pump-wise for the new system.