Almost had a disaster from skimmer

[Trickdout69]

Ok so I'm running a coralife 220 skimmer. I know they are not the best but right now it's all that is in the budget. I don't have room in the sump so it hangs on the side. The other night I woke up luckily and heard my return pump gurgling air. I look at the sump and it's so low the pump is dry. I see that the skimmer decided to overflow all of a sudden. I have the small tube running down to a large container to collect the run over. Does anyone have any ideas of how to prevent this If I wouldn't have been home it could have been a real mess. Thanks for all the help

 

[monkiboy]

use the avast skimmate locker. it'll automatically shut off your skimmer when overflowing or the skimmate container is full and needs to be emptied.

AVAST Marine Works - Davy Jones' Skimmate Locker - Product Details

 

[redfishbluefish]

If you are on a budget and can't swing the Skimmater Locker, for about 30-40 dollars you can set up a float switch to shut off the skimmer pump if and when it goes wild. Here is the ugly "kill" setup I had when I first set up my tank. The skimmate collect container is a juice jug that sits in a cut down salt bucket that has a float switch protected by a piece of pipe.

You can find the float switch, relay and associated parts at AquaHub for under $30 for the float switch part.