Questions about building a scrubber...

[sagxman]

Doing some reading on algae scrubbers. Love the concept but I'm not very handy. I was reading a post about a DIY on a scrubber in a bucket. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the physics of how it will all work in my setup without overflowing and flooding my living room.
Here's what I'm thinking: 29 gal. standard tank. I don't use a sump. I've got very little space underneath with my canister filter and whatnot. I would put an overflow box running a line under my tank (300gph?). It would go into a smallish bucket scrubber and then I've got to get the water back up to the DT. Is it that simple? The water comes from the display, runs over the screen and into the bottom of the bucket which is plumbed with a bulkhead leading to a pump sending the water back up? What happens if there isn't enough water coming down or too much water coming down?
This is why I research building a sump or fuge and just get overwhelmed. My wife will kill me if I flood the house.

 

[geoj]

Here is a pic of how it should work

Water starts in the bucket and is pumped up to the tank where it falls or overflows back down. As long as there is no clogging of the lines and overflow or a back siphon is not prevented you are safe from flooding.

 

[snakeblitz33]

Instead of worrying about a sump, you could just build a small scrubber inside a 5.5g tank and put the pump in the display tank and the scrubber above your tank. Then drill an overflow hole in the bottom of the 5.5g for the overflow back into your display tank. No sump necessary.

 

[sagxman]

Instead of worrying about a sump, you could just build a small scrubber inside a 5.5g tank and put the pump in the display tank and the scrubber above your tank. Then drill an overflow hole in the bottom of the 5.5g for the overflow back into your display tank. No sump necessary.
That's closer to what I was going for but the scrubber above the tank won't really work for me. That's why I was trying to figure out a way to go below with no sump.