Alright pool gurus, I'd like to pick your brains if I may... A couple of years ago we purchased an ancient Muskin 24' above ground pool and after lots of trial and error, mostly error 
we were able to get the thing up and running. By the end of the first season the 150lb sand filter developed a small hole in the side of the tank. Last year we replaced the sand filter with a Hayward Perflex DE filter. Shortly after installing the new filter the pump decided to start leaking out of every orifice so we decided to buy a new pump to go along with the new filter. Hubby figured it would be a good idea to hard plumb the pool since the equipment was hopefully going to stay the same for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, since somebody doesn't believe in covering the pool, we end up with a lovely swamp each spring and quickly discovered that the DE filter is not nearly as good at battling the green monster. This spring rather than spending weeks fighting the funk (and constantly changing the DE!), I found a Hayward Pro series high rate sand filter with 1.5hp Matrix pump on craigslist that had been used for a single season when the pool they were attached to was declared a total loss thanks to a clumsy horse. We purchased the pump/filter combo for $80. I plan to use the sand filter for major cleaning, vacuuming etc. and let the DE system be our main workhorse. For right now I'm connecting the sand filter setup in place of the DE stuff so I can get started waging war on algae, but would eventually like to have both equipment options available. Would it be better to add a valve of some kind after the skimmer or should we just go ahead and install another skimmer and return line(s)? Sorry this turned into a book...
we were able to get the thing up and running. By the end of the first season the 150lb sand filter developed a small hole in the side of the tank. Last year we replaced the sand filter with a Hayward Perflex DE filter. Shortly after installing the new filter the pump decided to start leaking out of every orifice so we decided to buy a new pump to go along with the new filter. Hubby figured it would be a good idea to hard plumb the pool since the equipment was hopefully going to stay the same for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, since somebody doesn't believe in covering the pool, we end up with a lovely swamp each spring and quickly discovered that the DE filter is not nearly as good at battling the green monster. This spring rather than spending weeks fighting the funk (and constantly changing the DE!), I found a Hayward Pro series high rate sand filter with 1.5hp Matrix pump on craigslist that had been used for a single season when the pool they were attached to was declared a total loss thanks to a clumsy horse. We purchased the pump/filter combo for $80. I plan to use the sand filter for major cleaning, vacuuming etc. and let the DE system be our main workhorse. For right now I'm connecting the sand filter setup in place of the DE stuff so I can get started waging war on algae, but would eventually like to have both equipment options available. Would it be better to add a valve of some kind after the skimmer or should we just go ahead and install another skimmer and return line(s)? Sorry this turned into a book...