Revised tidepool...

so wait... you already made it?

What happends if Electricity goes out DURING low tide?

ahh crap... I suck at writing in proper tenses or whatever... I haven't made it yet, When I was talking about "fixing" Things I guess I just meant fixing the design of it...

Right now I've got the lights, the sprinkler valve, and the pump. I'm definitely following through with this one though.

For sure!

If the power went out, the valve would shut. It opens when you run electrical current through it, and closes when the current shuts off. But I guess even if it didn't close,(which it does)it would still only drain down to the bottom of the strainer...

if the power goes out the worst that can happen is that it can go to low tide via backsiphon down the return pipe. Fortunately everything in the tank should be able to handle a water level of low tide, thats te benefit of a tide pool tank, just dont lose power for more than say 4 hours and all is well. I am assuming that you are going with moluscs anemonies starfish and fish right, goodluck getting ahold of all the livestock you want, you may have better luck going to collect some yourself at low tide on a dark night.

dude sorry to say this the only way this will work is if you make the lower drain to handle three times the amount of water that is put out of your pump or you will have a tidle area of about 1 inch with high tide being your upper drain.... trust me i use 2 one inch drains on my hex one to drain and one to skim the surface and my return is 825 an hour via a 1.5 inch soft line...try a 1.5 drain and a 1 inch return with the valve and pump on alternaning timers and put one of those scwd squid valves to alternate the side of the tank the water enters tide pools are about randomnot to be a know it all but i have tried this before and i dont want to see any one repeat my mustakes(stupid spelling)

your room is gonna smell really fishy

This is cool! When you get it up and running post some ics or videos of it working