help!

[stevens421]

My aqua clear 70 crapped out on me last night, new one won't be here until Monday. Moved heater into display and pointed powerhead at water surface. Any advice or problems I should keep an eye out for until Monday?

[JR!]

you should be just fine

[DC5]

Agreed...this isn't really a huge deal at all. As long as you still have water flow and heat, you'll be fine.

[Tenor]

Nothing to worry about, heater and power head for water circulation are fine. A lot of people do reef tank with out sump or filter.

[aviator300]

When you say "crapped out" do you mean that it just stopped running or cracked casing, or leak, or what. sometimes they just need a deep cleaning.

 

Most of the time if you take them apart and clean out the impeller housing and then take some very fine sandpaper and lightly sand the armature that the impeller is attached to, they will work fine.

 

I dont mean to tell you things you may already know but i've fixed many an Aquaclear this way.

[Bobyboy]

I always just pull the pump and clean the prop area and stick it back together.

[stevens421]

When you say "crapped out" do you mean that it just stopped running or cracked casing, or leak, or what. sometimes they just need a deep cleaning. Most of the time if you take them apart and clean out the impeller housing and then take some very fine sandpaper and lightly sand the armature that the impeller is attached to, they will work fine. I dont mean to tell you things you may already know but i've fixed many an Aquaclear this way.

Yeah I pulled it apart and cleaned it before I ordered another one. I think the prop got super clogged and wasn't able to turn and the motor burned out. but another question: i was dealing with a bit of cyno and aiptasia when my return broke, by the time monday rolled around and i had the new one my tank was in terrible shape. Replaced all my sand, did a 60% water change and scrubbed all my rock. After my display wasnt cloudy from all this and i put everything back in the thought occured to me that i may have just removed all my good bacteria and algae along with all the bad. So the question is should I be worried about my tank cycling? It had been up for a year and a half prior to all this so it was well established, but now I'm concerned I may have just wiped everything out that has grown and developed in the past 1 1/2 years...

 

before and after pics.

 

And I just kinda threw everything back in (coral, fish, and inverts were in buckets for hours so I was eager to get them back in the display. Don't judge lol)

[Tamberav]

I would just keep an eye on parameters to make sure you didn't release too much nasty stuff into the water column when removing the sand. The live rock should help repopulate the sand. You may get some diatoms until the silicate gets used up.

 

I would siphon/clean the sand with each water change. It looks sort of deep and course grained, it will probably trap stuff if you don't keep it clean and you may end up back where you started in another year.