Yeah...I would do the same. I didn't want to say, "Don't use weather strip" because you had your reasons for wanting to use it in the beginning, but think of it like this...The baffles will only be siliconed in so if later on down the road you wanted to remove the baffles to change it up a bit, all you'd need to do is cut the silicone and remove the baffles. It's not like an acrylic sump with baffles glued in with weldon. You can remove silicone quite easily if you have to