Dixie's future DIY project

[Dixie_reefer]

Ok, so the Army is moving us next summer and I plan on taking that opportunity to upgrade my tank at the new place. My plans are inspired by another tank setup on here. I'm planning on my husband and I to build the new stand and maybe an acrylic tank if I decide not to use mt 36 gallon tank I have now.

Here is my tank as of now:

Here is my 36 gallon I might upgrade:

Here is what I want my new stand to look like:

I like the idea of the visible fuge/quarantine tank. I haven't decided which one it's going to be. Obviously if it's going to be a qt tank, it won't be connected to the main dt, it will be its own tank with a bare bottom and some rock.


QUESTION:
I have no idea how the plumbing works between a dt and a fuge and I am terrified of having water spill out onto my floor. I have tried to read up on it but it just confuses the tar out of me. I may add a sump too. Can somebody please dumb everything down and tell me how all that works and what I will need to have it working successfully? Any helpful advice is welcomed!

 

[kmaintl]

When your system is completely shut off, you just want to be sure that the fuge is large enough to catch the excess water until the drainage from top tank stops. You just need to connect a drain/overflow from top tank to bottom and put a pump in bottom to pump the water back up to the top tank.