Emergency. Broken return pump.

[SSalty]

While cleaning my return pump I managed to break the impeller shaft. No one in town has a replacement. The quickest I can get a new impeller will probably be in 5 to 7 days.

My dilema is, is that I might be skimmerless for those days. My tank is a 55 gallon with 10 small frags/colonies of sps. I run a fairly low-nutrient tank, and my water is clean. I have a small fish load, 1 clown, sixline, and a watchmen goby.

If I were to put my heater in the display and keep my 2 koralis on, would I be ok?

Thanks.

[needyreefer]

You should be fine going skimmerless for a week. If your water quality seems to be lacking without the skimmer just do a small water change.

[imcosmokramer]

you could manually take water from your sump and pour it into your DT every once in a while. This will circulate the water. You could also take any Maxijet you have laying around and just hook up some clear tubing to it and throw it in the sump running anywhere into your tank.

[rkelman]

Depending on where its broke it may still work.. I have a pump from a CSS 220 that works just fine with a broken impeller shaft.

[Gdevine]

Use your skimmers pump and you will be fine. I HIGHLY recommend that you buy a back-up return pump for this and other reasons. Having a back-up is a must and you just found out [almost] the hard way!

[jvdb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15023676#post15023676 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gdevine
Use your skimmers pump and you will be fine. I HIGHLY recommend that you buy a back-up return pump for this and other reasons. Having a back-up is a must and you just found out [almost] the hard way!

I agree. Unless you have something like a basement sump configuration, even a Maxijet 1200 should work fine as a temp. I keep a few of them around not only for mixing saltwater, but also for emergencies such as this.

[SSalty]

Thanks for the suggestions. I just hooked up a MJ 1200.

[Agu]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15023913#post15023913 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SSalty
Thanks for the suggestions. I just hooked up a MJ 1200.

Good decision, this way you won't have a sump of stagnant water. You might even decide you prefer the lower flow through the sump.

[BuddhaKiss]

Just out of curiosity, what are u using as your return pump? This happend to me on a Mag 5, and no LFS carried the impeller. So while a replacement was on order, I cut a wooden skewer to size and used that instead. I was surprised it worked until the replacement came.