How do you keep the water from getting all over the floor?

[Newreefer1]

When you have a underneath sump/refugium - How do you keep the water from getting all over the floor. The top main tank could overflow or the bottom sump could overflow. How do you find the balance? Do you use the same exact pumps for overflow and return. What if 1 pump stops working?

 

[Mihai]

You only use one pump to pump the water from the sump to the tank.
The tank does overflow into the sump. That is, any water that the pump from the sump pushes up will overflow and fall back into the sump.
You practically don't have enough water to overflow...

If it's not clear you can go briefly to your LFS and see how their display is plumbed...

M.

 

[Anonymous]

In a nut shell, you set the sump water level low enough so that if the pump stops, the overflowed water from the main tank will all be contained in the sump. To find the appropriate sump level, add water to the main tank until fills the sump all the way to the top. Turn on the pump, and when the water goes down in the sump, mark the level, and make sure you never go above the mark if the pump is on.

 

[mark78]

What they said

The tank drain to the sump should be an overflow, at the surface of the tank. This way the tank only fills to that height, and anything else gets drained down below. This is where the sump comes in. It catches the overflow, and uses a pump to push it back to the tank. You usually only have tank volume + half the volume of your sump. That way when it shuts off, as Reefbox said, it simply fills the sump and does not overflow to the floor

 

[smontanus]

You do have to watch out for foul ups like a plugged overflow. This is almost always solved by regular maintenance and vigilance. Some use float switches in critical areas to switch off the pump if a level gets too high. But like was stated above if you have proper sump capacity and the correct level set this shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Newreefer1]

Thanks everyone, I understand how it works now.