if you had to leave your tank for 6 months...

[somethingphishy]

If I had to leave "MY" tank for 6 months I would sell everything off and leave frags w/friends.

Think i would do about the same...i just would not trust someone to take care of my tank for that long...i put too much time into my tank to keep things how they are and i don't think someone could replicate what i do

 

[colotl]

you guys are all giving me a warm and fuzzy right now... she is use to the water.. i go out for weeks and sometimes months at a time now and she does ok.. this will be the longest i will be out tho.. as far as getting everything else automated it worries me that she wont be able to figure that out if something goes wrong... i was really hoping doing the water change would take care of any water discrepancies that i may have.. or atleast slow down any problems until i get back....

I slowly introduced my wife so she wouldnt get overwhelmed. When I do a cleaning I will always cause some kind of fault to the system and then show her how it reacts so she has a visual. Then I show her how to tweak it back and fix the problem. Sometimes I dont know there was a problem cause she has taken care of it! No I just need to teach to tell me there is a problem but be careful not to make her feel bad cause then your screwed hahaha

 

[Milkman78]

also u can introduce her to reefcentral and she will get alot of help here also by asking questions should anything not look rite

 

[Quis]

Am3gross, PM your #.

 

[mcoomer]

So, I'm guessing that you're deploying (Med Cruise?). As the others have noted, teach your wife as much as she's comfortable doing and how to recognize problems early. If she's not comfortable with repairs and major events in the tank you need to make sure that you have a least a few reliable options for help from local reefers.

Aside from that, I'd invest in a controller that will allow you to monitor it via the Net. Yes, it's a pretty big upfront investment but if you've been in the hobby for long you've probably got several thousand in your tank. I run a DA Reefkeeper Elite and can monitor various parameters and equipment conditions. Check out what happened to me on a recent trip to Japan. I had an ATO problem on a system that had been running flawlessly for probably 6 years. Of course, it picked a time when I was on the other side of the world to fail. I saw from the readings that something was in the process of failing, called home, and got the situation handled. I didn't lose any livestock or equipment. As far as I'm concerned the controller is more than paid for.

Mike