NPS on vacation

[ari5736]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to feed a nps tank when on vacation. I use a feeding reactor that I fill with roti's and phyto every day or so. My fish sitter will not be able to figure out how to use the reactor, so I need to come up with another system for the week I am gone in January. I am thinking of just having the sitter drop a bunch of cubes of
H20 coral food in the tank every day:

INGREDIENTS: Rotifers Brachionus sp., Cyclops copepods Cyclops sp., Moina Moina sp., Phytoplankton: Spirulina, Isochrysis and Nanochloropsis, Potassium ascorbate.
(source of Stabilized vitamin C).

I figure my anthias will be more of a concern with getting enough food than the dendros, since it is only 1 week.

 

[pleasants9]

i don't know about your coral but my fish and suncoral can go a full week without feeding no problem

 

[ari5736]

Anthias? What species?

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

By dendro, do you mean Dendrophyllia or Dendronephthya? Dendrophyllia would be fine most likely for the week. Dendronephthya would most certainly not be fine.

 

[stunreefer]

No I don't know of any way (easily) done that's completely automated. Whatever you do, make sure to run several tests and run your tank exactly like it would be when you're gone to esnure you don't come home to any "surprises".

By dendro, do you mean Dendrophyllia or Dendronephthya? Dendrophyllia would be fine most likely for the week. Dendronephthya would most certainly not be fine.

+1

 

[ari5736]

Dendronephthya, sorry for lack of clarity.

 

[ari5736]

So bottom line, don't go on vacation? Or hope that the corals will get by on H20 Coral Food for a week, it is almost the same ingredients to my drip after all (minus oysterfeast, Pavlova, Tetraselmis, and Thalassiosira) , I just don't know the concentrations.

Also how about increasing volume or concentration of my dripped food so it lasts a few days and adding some preservative to it, like ascorbic acid?

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

You could try to automate things as much as possible, but I would find someone trustworthy and have them feed the tank while I was away. I strongly believe in keeping things as simple as possible, so most of the automated systems in my tank are really simple to work with. This helps when I need someone to take care of my tank while I'm away.