Cadlight Nano- died

[Hairytank]

Did not want to highjack Treebeard's thread so started another.

Was on vacation for ten days. Used a wireless d-link video camera to monitor the sump and it worked really well, but the angle did not include the pellet reactor..
So got home and the pump on my Cadlight Nano reactor stopped again.. Not impressed with these pumps.

three questions
1) are there any good replacement pumps for the nano reactor?
2) i do not know how long the reactor was stopped for. I don't want to crash the tank by just starting it back up. So do I have to do anything with the pellets before I get them going again?
3) this cadlight nano has been really flaky since the beginning. Is there anything else out there that would be suitable for a 50 gal nano with minimal sump space?