My first sump test.

Right, the return pump puts the water in the tank, then it overflows in the box, I got the pump pumping at its max, it does had an built in flow adjustment. but since I put the control on the overflow, I was able to match what was flowing out with the pump. I did learn a lot in my first sump, I built the pump side to big and the side I put my skimmer to small. The tank sure looks different with all that stuff out of it.

 

OK, cool. Not exactly ideal, but you just need to understand the down side.

If anything clogs up the drain strainer, then you can overflow the tank. Make sure you have grates and keep snails and fish out. A clump of algae could cause real problems.

On the other side... as the return pump gets dirty, it's output will slow, so you will have to keep adjusting the valve... not all the time, just over time... when you clean the return pump then it will back to new. If algae grows on the grate to your overflow it will slow things too so keep it clean... but that is true for any tank.

It's all good. We learn as we go.

 

Thanks Powerman, I am pretty good about keeping things clean, normally in my weekly water changes I also clean stuff off. That canistor filtor is temporary, when I added the live sand in the refugium things got pretty milky in there, so I am using it to speed up the clearing of the water. When I upgrade I surely want to better plan a sump/refugium system.