Extended Time Away from Aquarium

[Treefer32]

My wife and I are planning to move to the next stage of our life which includes extended stays in an RV far from the north. We're planning to live away (primarily in winters) 2-4 months out of the year, possibly starting as early as this coming winter.

I've got a 340 gallon display with a 75 gallon sump. Hydros monitoring on it, with wyze cameras. I'll have 2 for sure, one on the display and one on the sump, I may have a third to further monitor things.

I have two automated feeders- Plankton feeder feeding 3 times a day around the equivalent of 7 cubes of food per day. I also have The IND Aquatics frozen food auto feeder. I have that set to feed around 4 cubes of frozen food per day.

I manually feed a sheet of nori every 2-3 days.

My question is how do I use the two food automation tools I have to feed vegies?

One of my tangs gets a faded color scales along his spine if he goes more than 3 days without nori. About day 5 and all of his scales fade and get grayer (it's a black tang). Other tangs have battle scars when no nori is fed).

I've never seen fish be so dramatic over their vegies! That said, how do I get enough of the equivalent of nori in these mechanisms? The Frozen food feeder doesn't do nori pieces well. They stick to the hozes and plug it up. (I've tried).

I think there's frozen veggie cubes I'll look into that.
Is there anything in the plankton Auto feeder I can add in from a veggie standpoint that would have the nutritional equivalent of nori?

I just need to solve the Nori problem to keep my fish healthy.

I should say, I've got around 12-14 fish, most are large. 3 angelfish of different types (ones huge and fat, the Lamarck's, male and female pare of swallowtails.) A massive 12-14" Caribbean blue tang, chocolate tang, and 12-13 year old black long nose tang. Pair of royal gramas, diamond back goby, pair of clown fish, 1 barred goby (survived out of 10).

They eat a ton and get agressive with each other if they don't get enough. The blue tang can eat an entire sheet of nori by himself per day.

 

[JTP424]

Can you use the frozen food guy and get like Rods Herbivore Blend?
*edit, you note this. So I would try it :)

 

[Treefer32]

Can you use the frozen food guy and get like Rods Herbivore Blend?
*edit, you note this. So I would try it :)

Yeah, i was thinking something like that, I just don't know if that's enough. I can feed more or more often, just not sure if it's enough to completely supplement for no nori at all. or Nori only once a week.

 

[JTP424]

Will your tangs eat formula two pellets?
I've heard good things about those too?

 

[Treefer32]

That's what I was seeing. I'll give those a try in the plankton feeder. I've honestly never fed pellets. No idea if they'll know what they are. Then again, they eat anything in the water column, so, they'll probably eat them.

 

[TX_REEF]

How about shredded nori in the auto feeder?

 

[JonoH]

Why not just find someone local to service the tank while your away?

 

[Submerge]

How often during that 4 months will you have someone reload feeders and check things? At least weekly right? Maybe a combo of all of those sources plus have your helper put nori in as well.

 

[haitian_reefer]

If I was gone for that long, I would get a tank sitter just pop in and do a visual. How are you managing top offs for that long?

 

[MNscoe]

My wife and I are planning to move to the next stage of our life which includes extended stays in an RV far from the north. We're planning to live away (primarily in winters) 2-4 months out of the year, possibly starting as early as this coming winter.

I've got a 340 gallon display with a 75 gallon sump. Hydros monitoring on it, with wyze cameras. I'll have 2 for sure, one on the display and one on the sump, I may have a third to further monitor things.

I have two automated feeders- Plankton feeder feeding 3 times a day around the equivalent of 7 cubes of food per day. I also have The IND Aquatics frozen food auto feeder. I have that set to feed around 4 cubes of frozen food per day.

I manually feed a sheet of nori every 2-3 days.

My question is how do I use the two food automation tools I have to feed vegies?

One of my tangs gets a faded color scales along his spine if he goes more than 3 days without nori. About day 5 and all of his scales fade and get grayer (it's a black tang). Other tangs have battle scars when no nori is fed).

I've never seen fish be so dramatic over their vegies! That said, how do I get enough of the equivalent of nori in these mechanisms? The Frozen food feeder doesn't do nori pieces well. They stick to the hozes and plug it up. (I've tried).

I think there's frozen veggie cubes I'll look into that.
Is there anything in the plankton Auto feeder I can add in from a veggie standpoint that would have the nutritional equivalent of nori?

I just need to solve the Nori problem to keep my fish healthy.

I should say, I've got around 12-14 fish, most are large. 3 angelfish of different types (ones huge and fat, the Lamarck's, male and female pare of swallowtails.) A massive 12-14" Caribbean blue tang, chocolate tang, and 12-13 year old black long nose tang. Pair of royal gramas, diamond back goby, pair of clown fish, 1 barred goby (survived out of 10).

They eat a ton and get agressive with each other if they don't get enough. The blue tang can eat an entire sheet of nori by himself per day.

How do you like the IND AF4 frozen food feeder? I’ve seen mixed reviews.

I’m going on a two week trip in June and my new Valentini Puffer isn’t eating pellets, only frozen food, so I’m going to need a way to keep him alive…

 

[haitian_reefer]

For 2 weeks I would have a tank sitter. Can your ato hold 2 weeks of water?

 

[MNscoe]

@haitian_reefer I will have a guy stop by regularly, but unsure if he can make it every day. He will feed frozen food when he comes, and he can refill the ATO (it lasts about a week). So I'm thinking once-daily pellet autofeeder, and then a cube of frozen food whenever my guy can make it.

 

[dwest]

I leave my aquarium for up to 2 months. For feeding I rely on eheim feeders with various pellets, primarily NLS. I have 2 yellow tangs, one purple, one pacific blue.

 

[BryanM]

Yeah, i was thinking something like that, I just don't know if that's enough. I can feed more or more often, just not sure if it's enough to completely supplement for no nori at all. or Nori only once a week.

I don't feed my tangs nori, even when I've tried they don't seem to like it.

I feed my fish exclusively TDO Chromonboost 3x a day, and they are all fat and happy.

As far as being going 2-4 months, what are you going to do if you see something on the cameras that concerns you?

 

[MNscoe]

I leave my aquarium for up to 2 months. For feeding I rely on eheim feeders with various pellets, primarily NLS. I have 2 yellow tangs, one purple, one pacific blue.

I have successfully done pellet auto-feeders as well, but now I have two new fish that aren't eating pellets (Valentini Puffer and Royal Gramma), so I need to give them frozen. I've heard fish can often be trained to eat other foods, but I'm a beginner and haven't attempted that yet (don't really know how).

 

[dwest]

I have successfully done pellet auto-feeders as well, but now I have two new fish that aren't eating pellets (Valentini Puffer and Royal Gramma), so I need to give them frozen. I've heard fish can often be trained to eat other foods, but I'm a beginner and haven't attempted that yet (don't really know how).

I’ve had grammas for 30 years and feel confident it will eat pellets when it gets hungry and learns from the other fish. I’ve never had a puffer so I don’t know anything about them.

I think the most important thing about traveling is doing what you are going to do when traveling long before the actual travel. Feeding, ATO, AWC, cameras, are the first things that pop into my head.

Good luck.

 

[Treefer32]

I don't feed my tangs nori, even when I've tried they don't seem to like it.

I feed my fish exclusively TDO Chromonboost 3x a day, and they are all fat and happy.

As far as being going 2-4 months, what are you going to do if you see something on the cameras that concerns you?

This is a really great question. I have friends and family that can assist. I'm friends with the LFS owner as well. I plan to probably have the LFS owner check / service once a week (all dosers, feeders, and feed nori).

And a friend just check the house, get the mail, he can feed nori too and check everything over, make sure no leaks, or anything appears wrong. Check sump pump for the house, water house plants, things like that.

Make the house look lived in even if we're not there.

Debating if it's best to sell everything. I love the display and I love how amazing the corals and fish are doing together. But, it's getting so costly to maintain and some of the equipment's getting old enough it probably needs to start being replaced.

 

[BryanM]

This is a really great question. I have friends and family that can assist. I'm friends with the LFS owner as well. I plan to probably have the LFS owner check / service once a week (all dosers, feeders, and feed nori).

And a friend just check the house, get the mail, he can feed nori too and check everything over, make sure no leaks, or anything appears wrong. Check sump pump for the house, water house plants, things like that.

Make the house look lived in even if we're not there.

Debating if it's best to sell everything. I love the display and I love how amazing the corals and fish are doing together. But, it's getting so costly to maintain and some of the equipment's getting old enough it probably needs to start being replaced.

If this was my life and I was planning on traveling more, or being away for long periods of time I think I would sell.. It isn't like its a pet dog that you can take on vacation with you.

My servicing people charge $200 per hour, one hour minimum. 16 weeks, $3200... For me, that just isn't sustainable.

 

[PharmrJohn]

If this was my life and I was planning on traveling more, or being away for long periods of time I think I would sell.. It isn't like its a pet dog that you can take on vacation with you.

My servicing people charge $200 per hour, one hour minimum. 16 weeks, $3200... For me, that just isn't sustainable.

Yeah, I'm in this camp too. The main reason I don't have a tank yet is that my wife and I haven't figured out what traveling is going to mean for us on our retirement. We're thinking 2 months away at any given time. If we decide on 2 weeks at a time, I'll pull the trigger. But there's just too much that can go wrong with months upon months of sub-par care (besides LFS).

 

[Treefer32]

If this was my life and I was planning on traveling more, or being away for long periods of time I think I would sell.. It isn't like its a pet dog that you can take on vacation with you.

My servicing people charge $200 per hour, one hour minimum. 16 weeks, $3200... For me, that just isn't sustainable.

The LFS doesn't charge near that much, and I'm Providing him corals for in-store service credit. I just provided him 25 and have another 25-30 ready to go. And can easily frag another 60 without making a dent in my current colonies. I plan to do this for the next year to have a ton of service based store credit saved up. He's good with doing this as when he sells or maintains commercial customers he likes an assortment of corals to grow out.

I'm not getting much per frag, so, it's a win win as profitability is very high and I get self sustaining services.

That said, I agree, it's dangerous. I do have it listed on the sell forum as well to see if any interest. I'm sad to tear it down but excited for our new chapter of travels.