I decided to put together a "continuity book" (yeh, I know) for the reef prior to a series of deployments and surprise short tours spanning the late 80's through the 90's. Broke it down into the basics, included step-by-step procedures with pictures, and provided emergency phone numbers of local civilian reef keepers that were familiar with my system. Feeding, filter cleaning (including the skimmer), water changes - all covered.
The reef fared better under the care of some more than others, as I'm sure you can imagine. With the ones that weren't afraid of actually doing the housekeeping, the reef did quite well :fish2:. With the others that focused on hosting poker games :bum: and smoking cigars :beer: in the house, well...the dog didn't appreciate that much, either, and I replaced a lot of coral and some fish upon return.
Lessons learned:
Try to clear your house/reef sitter in advance and attempt to gauge their sense of responsibility. If they can't push a vacuum, they won't clean your reef's filter.
Write an all inclusive checklist well in advance (read: now) and use it yourself. If you can't locate a power strip switch or identify what a skimmer cup is from your checklist, provide pictures with arrows, circles, and such.
Have a friend or two that know nothing about aquariums run through the checklist under your watchful eye.
Review and update the checklist frequently (we've all been down that path, right?).
I hope this helps with a little peace of mind during your adventures.
Oh, of course, these days you could also set up a web cam to send out live shots of the reef as well, so you could monitor on the web from pretty much anywhere you could get a connection. Could probably even set up a camera for the family, too...:spin3:
