Canister replacement

Yea it will be fine as long as you keep up on water changes.

Stuff it with really efficient bio media like lava rock and it should hold you over. Hows your bio load?

Bio load is 4 apistos, two adf, one bn, three ottos so it's not too much. Plus the fact that is fully planted. I usually do my water changes every two to three weeks whichever my tds builds above 500.

I have matrix in my canister right now, which I think is a really good bio media.

I'd up the water changes to 10-14 days max and you'd be fine.. Plecos tend to be poop machines so I always count them as 3 fish in my brain when people list their fish LOL (same with mystery snails)

This will almost always be a guess so it requires some xtra watching and maybe testing more. It sounds like it would be okay but when we make a major change like this, we sometimes get it wrong. That does not mean it has to lead to real big trouble, though. Watch the fish for any signs of irritation like flashing or other action. Do some tests for pollution like ammonia or nitrite. Then have in mind a cure if you see trouble. The biggest quickest cure for pollution is clean water! For a month, you may find you need to do double or even triple water changing. Sometimes we kind of have to figure that is what we pay for guessing wrong?
Most of us do that , now and then.

Yeah I was thinking of doing water at least 3 water changes in a month without a canister. My nitrates were pretty high today though so I did a 50%er. What about my extra bio media? How do I keep the bacteria alive until, I get the new filter? Just bag it with water?

That's what I did back in the day when I had a bio wheel. I just let it float in the tank. It got wedged in front of the new outflow and spun like a water wheel all in its own. Keep in mind there is a ton of bacteria in your substrate and on plants and all surfaces under water. You can stick it in a knee high panty hose or hair net and let it float or pin to the side of your tank. Whatever works for you. I used to seed my aquarium with substrate from older aquariums. I kept it in a betta cup with a lid in it. There was that feeding/air hole on the top. I didn't want my stuff to mix. It was gravel and I was switching to sand in the new tank.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

What about in a bucket in still tank water? The bacteria will just die off because of no water flow and no ammonia to feed them?

Exactly. They need ammonia and nitrites (you have 2 different kind of bacteria) I'd just do what I mentioned. It's what I'd do personally..

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Filling the S20 with media from your existing filter and putting the rest of the current media in a mesh bag and keeping it in the tank is the best way to prevent a mini-cycle.

I'm not a great believer that BB in the substrate, etc. is enough to prevent a mini-cycle if the filter media is suddenly replaced. I once had a tank crash badly when I switched from a sponge filter to a HOB and removed the sponge completely. Having learned my lesson, when I later upgraded to my Eheim, I left the HOB running alongside the canister for a full month; no cycle problems whatever.

I know but that's a huge eye sore to look at in the tank lol. I was hoping to avoid that. I guess I got to do what I got to do that. I could always just fill the hob with as much as I can scrap the rest and then use the hob media to seed new media yhough