Evaporation questions

[Jophus]

I am in the initial planning stages for reef tank. I have a very suceessful 125 gal fish only tank now for 5 yrs. The biggest thing that concerns me is dealing with the rapid evaporation in a tank with no glass top...leaving town...general maintenance, etc. Overheating the water is another issue. Can anyone provide some insight to relieve my fears? Thanks.

 

[fareforce]

I have a 5 gallon bucket with an IV drip to drip in top off water. That will last me about 4-5 days. As far as heat, I can't help you there. I live in Alaska. It's not a problem here. As far as general maintenance here is the trick. The more you plan, and the slower you take it the easier it will be. This mainly comes down to get the correct equipment the first time around. DON'T SKIMP!!! you will regret it later, and end up spending more money to correct the problem then you would have originally. I spend 5-15mins a day feeding my tank and looking everything over, and then about 2 hours on saturday doing water changes, and misc other things (mainly looking at the tank). and that is it.. If I really wanted to I could take a week long vacation and be fine. My tank is balenced enough to substain itself for a week. I would only need some one to come over every other day to feed my fish (which I pre-package each feeding for them so they cant screw it up!).

I hope this helps some..

 

[Konadog]

Jophus,
[welcome]

Evaporation is something that most of us have to deal with. My old 100 gallon would evaporate 1/2 to 1 1/2 gallons per day. I kept up with it by making a DIY nurce with a 5 gallon jug. That was good for 3 to 6 days.

 

[Fast Fred]

For quite a while, I used a Kent float valve in my sump that was directly fed from my R/O unit. This made evaporation basicly a non-issue in my tank.

Sometimes heat can be delt with by simply using fans in the hood and/or using them to blow accross the sump. Some tanks require a chiller, but so far, I haven't needed one.

Leaving town for exteded periods would likely require a knowlagable tank-sitter. Sometimes a LFS or local reef club can refer someone.

 

[dchao]

Dosing pumps:

http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_dosing_pumps_top_off__index.asp?CartId=