Filter buggered...

[lucysmam]

The 1200lph pump for my 190L trigon is buggered & I'm going to have to use my much smaller 450lph emergency pump (was all I could afford at the time) for five weeks while I save for a new one.

Currently I do a pwc once every 8 days of 100l of the water....since this pump is going to filter less than half of the broken one, do you think I should w/c every five days instead?

My tank is understocked atm & only fed every other day to try and sort out the stubborn as shit black beard algae that's growing in it.

I'd do a water test after the first week of having the smaller filter in to see what the impact is and water change as appropriate then test twice a week from then on to see if smaller, more frequent changes are needed.
Remember to squeeze your old filter sponge in to the back up filter to keep as many of the bacteria as possible.

I have cut and squished the old filter sponge into the little filter. It's a big internal in the juwel tank so will have to replace the pump as two filters take a fair bit of space. Not entirely sure the old sponge will be much use though, I have no idea at what point in the night the electric went to work out how much bacteria is likely to have died off

Extra testing it is....dd2 will be happy, she likes to help with that and counts buckets for w/c

Sounds like you're on top of it. You could always get some Ammolock or similar if you get really stuck. Best of luck!

If the power had only been off overnight I reckon the bacteria will be fine, and anyway, a little bit is better than none. Could you pop to the LFS and get some filterstart just in case?
Glad to hear you've got a helper in your DD2, I hate slogging the buckets through the house by myself!

Forgot to say, have you tried flourish excel for your algae? It got rid of my hair algae really well. Makes my plants grow like crazy too.

I haven't tried Flourish Excel, Eau, will have a google for it though....still battling the beardy stuff