Sounds like a blockage in the drain line, or the water level in the tank is not high enough to drain into the stand pipe. Any picts of the overflow set up in the tank?
I still don't think there's enough water in the system for the sump to fill the overflow this causing the display to rerun water to the sump. I can imagine that that maximum line is for when the system is running to give the sump some room for back siphon
Is the tank overflowing on the floor? If not you need to add water, there has to be enough water to allow water to go from sump to tank down in to over flow and down pipe back to sump in a continuous loop for it to work.