Broken filter - how urgent?

[Elena82x]

I have a 240l with the fluval 307. The aquastop has broken and as it’s a public holiday the part can’t be sent until Tuesday. The tank has already gone over 24 hours without filtration. I did a 50% water change last night. How often and how big do I need to do the water changes until next Tuesday when I can get the filter back on? It’s a 2 year old tank with some plants though not heavily planted. There is a large air stone in it.
Thank you

 

[gwand]

How many and what kinds of fish are in the tank? Over a couple of days I find keeping the water well oxygenated is more important than filtering. But it depends on your livestock.

 

[AJ356]

Any chance of some pictures, and we can get a feel for how heavily stocked the tank is for fish and plants as that makes a difference.

Do you have any ammonia or nitrite testing kits?

If you can afford it, order a spare internal filter. For your size tank, you can get a Betta 800 internal filter on Amazon and they are quite cheap, quiet and reliable in my opinion. It's bigger than it looks on the Amazon website in the pictures. Or an Aqua Flow 400 internal. Neither of these filters is rated for a 240 litre tank, but they both have enough space for media and power to create a good flow in a 240 litre tank, and help in a crisis.

Where in the UK are you?

Do you know any local fish keepers that might have a spare internal filter, or external, and you can use your current mature media for it

It will also be important to keep your current mature media from dying out. Some on here will say the beneficial bacteria just go dormant and then quickly come back to life if a filter that is not working, but my ammonia and nitrite testing says different. After 48 hours of a filter being off, there is a problem in my experience.

The plants may help save you here, depending on how many plants you have, how healthy they are, and the fish stocking levels.

I will wait to see what you come back with before offering any advice on water changes.

One aspect, is making sure that the one airstone is doing a good enough job of agitating the surface of the water, but Fish and plant stocking levels are also needed here.

Also, the behaviour of the fish will give you clues. Any of them gasping at the top? Do they look like they are breathing normally, or a higher rate of respiration?

Do you have a water conditioner that removes chlorine and chloramine?

 

[Elena82x]

Any chance of some pictures, and we can get a feel for how heavily stocked the tank is for fish and plants as that makes a difference.

Do you have any ammonia or nitrite testing kits?

If you can afford it, order a spare internal filter. For your size tank, you can get a Betta 800 internal filter on Amazon and they are quite cheap, quiet and reliable in my opinion. It's bigger than it looks on the Amazon website in the pictures. Or an Aqua Flow 400 internal. Neither of these filters is rated for a 240 litre tank, but they both have enough space for media and power to create a good flow in a 240 litre tank, and help in a crisis.

Where in the UK are you?

Do you know any local fish keepers that might have a spare internal filter, or external, and you can use your current mature media for it

It will also be important to keep your current mature media from dying out. Some on here will say the beneficial bacteria just go dormant and then quickly come back to life if a filter that is not working, but my ammonia and nitrite testing says different. After 48 hours of a filter being off, there is a problem in my experience.

The plants may help save you here, depending on how many plants you have, how healthy they are, and the fish stocking levels.

I will wait to see what you come back with before offering any advice on water changes.

One aspect, is making sure that the one airstone is doing a good enough job of agitating the surface of the water, but Fish and plant stocking levels are also needed here.

Also, the behaviour of the fish will give you clues. Any of them gasping at the top? Do they look like they are breathing normally, or a higher rate of respiration?

Do you have a water conditioner that removes chlorine and chloramine?

Thank you
Pic attached, doesn’t quite show the few plants but regardless there aren’t many and I’ve had low success with plants. The surface has a large amount of duckweed.
I have a large air stone but have a spare so I’ll add it in
I’ve just ordered the aquaflow filter to help tie me over, it should arrive tomorrow thank you, hadn’t thought of that and also expected them to be much pricier
I have 6 yoyo loaches, 1 bristlenose pleco and 10 mollies (1 full size, the rest are about an inch long)
Planning not to feed for a couple of days to reduce waste
I’ve got ammonia and nitrate test kits, I haven’t tested yet but will do so shortly

 

[Elena82x]

Thank you
Pic attached, doesn’t quite show the few plants but regardless there aren’t many and I’ve had low success with plants. The surface has a large amount of duckweed.
I have a large air stone but have a spare so I’ll add it in
I’ve just ordered the aquaflow filter to help tie me over, it should arrive tomorrow thank you, hadn’t thought of that and also expected them to be much pricier
I have 6 yoyo loaches, 1 bristlenose pleco and 10 mollies (1 full size, the rest are about an inch long)
Planning not to feed for a couple of days to reduce waste
I’ve got ammonia and nitrate test kits, I haven’t tested yet but will do so shortly

No gasping or anything of concern… yet

 

[AJ356]

I think your gonna be okay. The loaches look very chunky, but it's not like you massively overstocked, that's when it can be a death trap with a busted filter. Other members might just say don't worry.

Make sure the duck weed is not blocking off the flow of the air stone with water surface agitation. The duck weed might be helping to control the ammonia.

The filter you ordered will turn your tank into a jacuzzi LOL, but you can adjust the flow. It's powerful. It's the Super Fish brand filter yeh? I should have made that clear. I couldn't find one for next day delivery, was it on Amazon? You get some nice parts with the filter to help control and direct the flow of the water. But being an internal, you'll only fit a fraction of your external media into it

If I was you, when the internal filter comes, put whatever looks like the muckiest part of your external filter media into the new internal. Do not rinse the old media or clean it.

Does your external have a mix of media like sponge etc? Put as much media into the internal as you can easily fit.

As for water changes in the meantime, might not be required, see what your ammonia and Nitrite levels are. This is why test kits are a Godsend for me. In my house, I'd rather run out of toilet roll than my API Nitrite test kit (liquid, not strips).

Great point about not feeding the fish. I should have thought to say that. That's very important at the moment and they will have no problem going a few days or more without food. Once you have your filtration up and running, I would base my feeding on what the readings are for ammonia and Nitrite. PH levels determine ammonia toxicity. At pH under 7, ammonia is less harmful or even not harmful at all (I can't remember). I have not had planted tanks in a while... you might not get any ammonia or Nitrite readings if you have those plants and are not feeding.

 

[AJ356]

If there is enough oxygen it looks like, and the way your fish breathe will let you know, and no ammonia or Nitrite levels, or just low nitrite levels 0.125 to 0.20ppm, I wouldnt do a water change just yet, and keep monitoring for ammonia and Nitrite.

If the Nitrite are 0.25ppm or over, I'd do a water change. Ammonia, partly depends on the pH.

Lots of UK tap water has around 0.10 or 0.15 ppm Nitrite, that's another reason when sometimes it's not worth doing an emergency water change for a very low Nitrite level.

Most water conditioners themselves can slightly reduce oxygen levels initially. Well that's what one of the companies told me, I think API. Mostly, if you overdose though I think.

 

[AJ356]

Make sure you keeping that external filter full of tank water. Not sure how long the bacteria will last for, but a lot longer than if they are bone dry!

 

[Elena82x]

Make sure you keeping that external filter full of tank water. Not sure how long the bacteria will last for, but a lot longer than if they are bone dry!

This is all so so helpful. Thank you I really appreciate it!! I got two of the superfish aquaflow 400s for £19 to be delivered tomorrow.. so having both I can get twice the media in and twice the help to the tank I’m guessing. Thanks for taking the time to advise on all this. Happy with my plan now!