Leaking Filter

Definately a few things you could consider:

Can any of the cycled media be used with the sponge filter?

Do you have live plants? Could you transfer some over from your other tank? These would definitely help.

Also dont feed them if you haven't already to cut down on waste production.

Do a water change in the morning before you go to work. 

EIither way i think you should be fine...  provided your cycled media can be put back into use by this time tomorrow.

I'm also going to have another stab at sorting the filter.

I'll strip the top down (nothing to lose!) and see what is going on but I need to eat first!

I may also go all "Blue Peter" if that fails.  I've got an air stone and a milk bottle so I might try and get a flow across some media as an emergency measure.

I turned  the filter off for a few minutes then forgot to turn it back on. I only realised 24 hours later when I went to feed the fish.

This is a tank that has been running for 3 and a half years now - a bit less when I left the filter off - so it will be covered in biofilm. And the filter was running on my old tank for several years before I got the current one. However, it does have quite a lot of plants which are probably what saved the day. For the most part I have slow growing plants like java fern and anubias, but I also have a lot of water sprite floating on the surface and floating plants are ammonia sinks.
With the looks of your tank, you hopefully have enough plants to keep the levels down overnight.

I think Prime says it is safe to add 5 times the stated dose (check with the bottle before overdosing!) and float as much of the external's media as you can - the bacteria will take up some ammonia and nitrite by just being in contact with the water.

Thanks all.

No moving parts and absolutely nothing that could cause a leak under the cover of the top section

I shall be resolving the issue tomorrow with a Fluval 306.  Been considering one for a while now so it's not the end of the world!

Well, half way through knocking up a temporary filter, I had a bright idea and fixed the damn thing!

Opened it up, spun the media trays and top through 180 degrees and put it back together.
No leaks

It's a ridiculous state of affairs to have an allegedly symmetrical item only go together one way, so it's still going to be replaced.
At least now I'll have a spare, instead of chucking it away. 

So, I set up the 306 last night and the water is soooo much clearer this morning which means that some of the stuff I read yesterday about water bypassing much of the filter media in SunSun canisters looks to be true.

I'll look at how to resolve that eventually so it will work properly if I ever need it again!

The Fluval has less room for media (but a lot more mechanical filtration) which means I now have a load of BioHome with no home!

Is it just a case of rinsing and drying out before storing it, or do I need to look at any other cleaning process?

Thanks.

It's very, very porous.

Looks like Wotsits, but made of sintered glass.

So just fresh water it is then.