Will Submerging a Skimmers Airline Prevent Overflow
 

I am considering buying a Super Reef Octopus 5000 External for my 300G FOWLR. Currently I am using a 55G acrylic tank as my sump and although there is enough room inside the sump for an internal skimmer, the eurobracing will not allow me to fit any decent sized skimmer inside of it...so I am looking towards external. Of course I have the same overflow concerns as most.

My question is, if I run the collection cup drain line into say a milk jug and also place the pumps airline in that milk jug so that if it were to overflow and fill up completely, the airline would be submerged. Will this prevent an overflow? Will the submerged airline be enough to stop the skimmer from overflowing if it decides to go wacky one day when im out of town?

http://www.saltyclown.com/images/thu...O-5000EXT1.jpg

Is there a waste collector drain on this collection cup?

A safer way is to employ a container with a float switch to collect the waste, it gets too high and it will kill the power tk the skimmer. Reef octopus sells a finished one with carbon for the smell, but it's about $200. You can build your own with any container and a top off kit from autotopoff. Yes, that skimmer has a drain in the cup for waste.

I had saw a friend with that skimmer with an extra waste container. So the float switch would be more bullet proof? I have seen my SRO3000int skimmer overflow, and I think it could probably overflow a whole extra waste container(~1gal) in no time.

I am leery about this with external skimmers too as I never have an external one before.

This would be for an upgrade build.

More bullet proof than having the airline get submerged. The RO waste collector uses a float switch as well that would shut it down. Making your own with the autotopoff one would give you a backup switch if you wanted.

http://coralvue.com/waste-collector/