When reef keepers go on vacation?

jpeggerling

New member
I'm going out of town for 10 day next week. I'm just kind of worried about my tank. I have a 20 gal display with a 10 gal fuge. I'm running a 175 watt MH over it. So I get alot of evaporation. I have justin "Truthdesigns" looking over thing when I'm gone. The only problem is I have to add water just about everyday. If maybe I cut my burn time on my MH and turned my return pump down that would help with the evaporation? Any suggestion would be awsome. Thanks, John
 
FWIW when I go on vacation I do change my light cylce to 4-5 hours a day if I am gone for more than 4 days. If I am gone for less I actually turn the lights off.
 
Do you have an ATO? I know that you can get a kit on aquahub.com for like 40 bucks. Grant (jetman) has that one and he says he likes it a lot so i'll be getting that before my vacation this summer.
 
I personally wouldnt change the flow of my tank. But the light cycle can help slow down the amount of evaperation.
 
Maybe you could borrow a dosing pump from some one while your gone. My Kangaroo doser with a 5 gallon bucket handled great while i was out of town.
 
I am going on vacation in a week for 5 days--I am a bit worried about my 3 tanks. My wife's sister is gonna watch our house while we're away, so hopefully she doesn't kill my fish or crash my tanks!! I will leave her VERY detailed info on feeding them.
 
I leave it to my parents who only live a few miles away.. they take great care of it, was really worried on my last 13 day vacation but came back and my water parameters where better than when I left.. GO PARENTS!!! woot
 
one tip:

For feeding the best way to prepare is to partition the food out for each day of feeding (or each feeding time if they are coming over more than once a day) and put it in like zip lock baggies for each day. Then Hide the rest of the fish food. This is especially helpful when it is a friend or relative who isn't into fish.

I think Tiffany was one who recommended that before and I can say it works great.

Really helps curb that "but the looked so hungry" response to why your fresh batch of food for the entire month is gone when you get back from your weekend vacation.

I tried this after the fun experience one time when on a weekend vacation when my sister fed the entire flake food container over 4 days. The only reasoning was as always "but they looked hungry" Luckily that was a freshwater system and no fish were harmed.

Shaun
 
Another thing i've heard for feeding is to get those things that people use to put pills in for each day of the week. That little plastic thing w/7 little compartments. For me that would be super easy since i just feed a cube of frozen per day in one tank, and a quarter of a cube in another tank...I'll just be getting 2 of those containers. Well maybe more since i'll be gone more than 7 days, but ya..
 
That is what I did when I left my husband in charge of our fresh water tank. I just filled each section with the food for one feeding. He opened it and dropped it into the tank. Easy for him and no worry for me. I will do that with the new salt tank if there is a need to.
 
What do you guys do about coral feeding? I'm going to be gone 10 days myself in a few months. I only target feed my bubble coral and RBTA so I'm thinking I will just have my house-watchers feed the entire tank and they should be fine.
 
I cannot emphasize enough. If you have SPS get a fellow reefer to stop by. Only they will know what to do to save your tank. I've watched someone's tank and caught corals STNing. I knew what went wrong and acted. Really there is no substitute. Most neighbors or family members would not catch something until it was too late.
 
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