Automating the reef tank so it's safe to go on vacation...

[Sk8r]

First, you must have an autotopoff system. This need not be expensive and it need not be run by a controller. The essence of them is a float switch in your sump that turns on a small RELIABLE pump (the Eheim has worked well) in your ATO (autotopoff) reservoir. This can be a 5 gallon bucket of ro/di. Or a 32 gallon Rubbermaid Brute trash can. If you normally use a 5 gallon bucket, consider moving a trash can into the living room. Let the neighbors wonder. If you're feeding a monster tank or going to be gone weeks and weeks, have a second trash can standing by with a tanksitter who knows how to switch the equipment. [If this is necessary, be SURE the tanksitter knows how to secure the topoff line to the tank so 32 gallons of fresh water does NOT get emptied onto your carpet. Secure clamp! Yes!]

Second re AtOs---don't run them for the first time the day you leave for vacation. Get it now and learn how to work it.

Point two: lights on timers. You should already have this. It will also deter burglars.

Point three: autofeeder. Most fish WILL eat flake. An autofeeder can deliver this multiple times a day, in a variety of doses. I use, again, an Eheim. Battery powered and reliable. Get the setting instructions online. There are YouTubes. It's futzy, but once you set it, your fish will like it. As with cats, sure they like the gooshy stuff, but they'll fare well on flake. I mix flake Formula One with ground krill. Feeds fish and corals and they stay fat and happy. DON"T ask your tanksitter to do the feeding. Feeding is fun. They don't know when to stop. It is not fun for your fish when the tank crashes. automate it! At best--strictly instruct, say, one cube of the frozen on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And again, get the autofeeder well in advance and learn to use it.

Point four: your tanksitter should know your cell number and not hesitate to use it if he/she has a question.

Point five: if you have a stony reef, kalk is a real good system for coming back to a stable tank. The kalk, added to your topoff, can really chew up the newest Maxijet impellers, but I've found Eheim tough enough to last. This assures your tank chemistry will stay rock solid during your absence.

Point six, when you leave the house---DON'T turn the air conditioning off in the house. If your heat balance was set for the house with ac running, LEAVE IT RUNNING or you may come back to a dead and stinking tank that got well above 85. Yes, it costs. That's the price of having a tank. Also---be sure the spouse does not forgetfully turn off the ac in the haste of leaving. That the ac is running should be your final check along with have you turned off the coffee pot and have you locked the windows.

I've left my tank in the hands of a friend who's never run a marine tank---was gone a little over 4 weeks, came back to a tank that looked as good as the day I'd left it. Better, actually. Stability will do that. Point of fact, I can take off with no tanksitter for a week and be quite confident there'll be no problem with the tank completely on its own.

I don't have a controller. Never have found a particular need for one.

 

[runjmc2]

My tank is all auto for vacations, except the feeder. I let the tank temps get up to low 90s and never an issue…mostly caribean fish and hardy corals though….

 

[Sk8r]

85 can start the coralline bleaching under metal halides. Not advised to exceed 80, for safety's sake. Heated water also carries less oxygen, and that can do in the fish as well as the corals. A few systems may survive the situation, but the average tank will die.

 

[runjmc2]

Maybe that's what the books say but my tank is over 90 all summer long…has been for many years. I don't have MH anymore…LEDs. Only corals are mushrooms and cabbage. The only fish that shows slight stress is the Sailfin tang….which makes sense give where they come from.

 

[Sk8r]

It may be also that the LEDS are not quite as damaging as the metal halides, which are so intense you can't look at them. I know personally I found my tank at 85, and coralline bleaching had turned everything white from the top of the tank down about 8 inches. Looked as if somebody had dropped vanilla ice cream onto my specimens, with accompanying dieoff, and it could have only been that way for about 3 hours. Took years for the rock to fully recover.

 

[hotelbravo]

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Point three: autofeeder. Most fish WILL eat flake. An autofeeder can deliver this multiple times a day, in a variety of doses. I use, again, an Eheim. Battery powered and reliable. Get the setting instructions online. There are YouTubes. It's futzy, but once you set it, your fish will like it. As with cats, sure they like the gooshy stuff, but they'll fare well on flake. I mix flake Formula One with ground krill. Feeds fish and corals and they stay fat and happy. DON"T ask your tanksitter to do the feeding. Feeding is fun. They don't know when to stop. It is not fun for your fish when the tank crashes. automate it! At best--strictly instruct, say, one cube of the frozen on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And again, get the autofeeder well in advance and learn to use it.

I set up an auto feeder but I still have a tank sitter feed.
I do this for my tank sitter and instruct them 1 section per two days. I had bad luck in the past saying "just a pinch"

 

[runjmc2]

nice idea

 

[smedlin]

Great post Sk8r.

Which auto-feeder to you actually use?

i've been looking to get one for those times when I'm gone for a few days (or 7).

 

[nsfishguy]

Do you ever worry about the ATO going crazy and overfilling your tank? What about cleaning the protein slimmer cup?

 

[Sk8r]

I put air tubing from the 2 air intake nipples on the Coralife that can spit after a power glitch, and routed it back to the tank---fine workaday precaution, too. I also arrange to skim very 'dry' and know my capacity is not going to run amok. Worst is to have an open drain that could lower water level, burn out pump, which is why I don't drain to a large bucket.

I use an Eheim feeder.

You can see from my account and runjmc2's that our tanks can function at opposite ends of the heat spectrum... tanks do differ wildly: so do take that into account, but knowing your own tanks, look at the longrange weather report, and have a friend who'll come in and turn on the AC if you're on the cusp of seasons. and as a side note, a tank has far more leeway with getting too cold than with heat, as a rule, because of warm water oxygenation problems.

I leave the AC on, I am VERY careful to clamp the hose for the ATO where it can't fall out, which saves you from one disasters; and if you use a snailproof ato dual switch with an upward limiter, or, as I do, an adjustable tube type, it's going to behave itself, and I use a 32 gallon reservoir for a 100 gallon tank, which gives me quite a lot of leeway. Main thing, if you're going to rely on an ATO don't start using one 3 days before you leave. There's a learning curve. Forgetting to plug it in. Jostliing the float or tube. Failing to design a failproof hose clamping method. (I use an aluminum scissor-clip and have the end of the tube stuffed down one of the twin intake ports of the sump.