What do I do when I go on vacation?
What do I do when I go on vacation?
I see posts from time to time inquiring what to do when we go on vacation. As everyone knows, these tanks require A LOT of maintenance and leaving for a week (or 4 weeks) can be stressful if you don't take the right precautions. We just got back from a week in Florida, so I thought I'd share some of the things I did/do to prepare.
First, I have a few things set up already which help quite a bit:
Surveillance Cameras - I have two camera for the fish tank, one facing and one under the tank watching the sump. They are recording 24/7 and I can view them from anywhere in the world.
Labeling - I've labeled all key items under the tank, dosers, ATO, skimmer, top off , etc. Along with the cameras, this helps me direct whomever is watching the tank what to do. Instead of saying, drain that big white and clear thing with the gunk on top, I can just say "skimmer" and they see the label and know what it is.
Apex - I use an Apex which allows me to monitor all sorts of things like temperature, automatic dosing, auto top off, etc. It can do things like shut off my lights or turn on a fan if the tank starts getting too hot.
Auto Waste Collector - I use a waste auto collector for my skimmer. This allows collection of up to a month of skimmate and will automatically shut off my skimmer if it fills up.
Next, there are the things I set up specifically for vacation:
Sump Sock Removal - I remove the socks in my sump. My socks clog up every 4-5 days and I usually replace them every 3. When I go on vacation, I just remove them altogether.
Manual Feeder - I feed my fish frozen food once a day. I usually let it thaw out, then dump it in. Since the person I have stopping by is an aquarium novice, I want it as simple as possible. So I built a floating cone for them to just dump in some frozen food. This allows the fish to eat at their leisure without it sucking into the filter before they can eat it. I built it by combining a Two Little Fishies MagFeeder with a Lee's Cone Worm Feeder. I also put together individual bags of frozen food for each visit. That eliminates the possibility of over feeding. All they need to do is grab a bag from the freezer and dump it into the ring.
Auto Feeder - I use a Neptune Auto Feeder. It allows me to control it through my Apex so if I see something out of wack on my tank cam, I can turn it off. I can also manually trigger it whenever I want and watch the fish eat on the tank cam. Directly under the Neptune feeder I have a floating ring to prevent the pellets from going into the overflow before the fish can eat them. I built it by combining a Two Little Fishies MagFeeder with a Square Ring Feeder. I added foam to the bottom of the Square Ring Feeder to provide for better floating. I also have my Apex set up to turn off my Vortechs for 3 minutes once the auto feeder is triggered. Last, I found that my turbos would sometimes knock the feeding ring out of alignment, so I use two Hammerhead algae scrapers (one per side) to hold it in place.
ATO Reservoir - My under tank reservoir only holds 5 gallons which is good for 4-5 days max. I'd love to get a bigger one, but that's all that fits. So when I go on vacation I need something that can fill approx. 1 gallon per day. So I use a 32 gallon Brute garbage can. I set that up next to the tank and just drop my Tunze pump in it. It's good for at least 30 days. I also zip tie the lines both to the garbage can, as well as to each other and to pipes under the tank to make sure our cat or someone else doesn't bump them out of place.
Hardwire Apex - I don't have an internet port behind my tank, so I use a gaming adapter to connect. As those that use them know, they sometimes drop connection. If you're home, it's a 2 second fix, but if you're not home, that's another story. So when I go on vacation, I always hard wire my Apex. It looks ugly like the brute can, but no one's home so who cares!
I think that's it. Let me know if you have any questions, I might have more tips I didn't think of putting in here!