Leaving my tank for a month

[SarfCharlee]

Quick question about leaving your tank for an extended period of time. I have a 13.5 evo, 2 months old, with two clowns. Parameters have been stable, lights off, taking it slow.

In December I will be doing remote work and will be away from my tank for roughly a month. During this time, my roommate will be doing feeds and my boyfriend will be doing weekly checks and water refills.

I have slight algae growth and am entering my "ugly phase" . Should I stock the tank before leaving with a few snails, and perhaps a shrimp to help with clean up during my absence? I have a feeling my roommate may overfeed so I am looking to help mitigate this with some invertebrates that will eat the scraps and work away at the algae.

Let me know if you have any tips/tricks for this kind of scenario! Thank you

 

[gentlefish]

Don’t think it’s realistic to hope to come back to a pretty tank. If you had someone who knows saltwater reefing as a local contact it would help. Others, I would not increase the biomass prior. Auto top up is your friend, so is prepackaged food labelled with date or if not possible auto feeder. Don’t forget to video call your friend...and yes some cleanup once it’s all over! Happy reefing!

 

[SarfCharlee]

Don’t think it’s realistic to hope to come back to a pretty tank. If you had someone who knows saltwater reefing as a local contact it would help. Others, I would not increase the biomass prior. Auto top up is your friend, so is prepackaged food labelled with date or if not possible auto feeder. Don’t forget to video call your friend...and yes some cleanup once it’s all over! Happy reefing!

Thanks for your reply! I agree with you, perhaps increasing the bio load prior to leaving is not a good idea.. I've seen some reefer pre-package the food into weekly pill cases. I will be sure to do this before leaving.

 

[gentlefish]

Thanks for your reply! I agree with you, perhaps increasing the bio load prior to leaving is not a good idea.. I've seen some reefer pre-package the food into weekly pill cases. I will be sure to do this before leaving.

I had worker with frozen. Precut chunks “one per day...stick with tweezers to pier head” and dry “just empty the contents of this zip loc into the tank once per day”. Here are 30ziplocs.

 

[Waters]

Quick question about leaving your tank for an extended period of time. I have a 13.5 evo, 2 months old, with two clowns. Parameters have been stable, lights off, taking it slow.

In December I will be doing remote work and will be away from my tank for roughly a month. During this time, my roommate will be doing feeds and my boyfriend will be doing weekly checks and water refills.

I have slight algae growth and am entering my "ugly phase" . Should I stock the tank before leaving with a few snails, and perhaps a shrimp to help with clean up during my absence? I have a feeling my roommate may overfeed so I am looking to help mitigate this with some invertebrates that will eat the scraps and work away at the algae.

Let me know if you have any tips/tricks for this kind of scenario! Thank you

Yes, not a bad idea at all to add some CUC....you should have some snails in there at this point anyways. Also, assuming you don't have any coral, you can dim the lighting way down while you are gone to avoid any excess growth.

 

[brandon429]

the #1 thing you should do is rip clean the system, meaning a few days before u leave, total clean. from the sand on up to the new water, a complete cleaning.
there is a certain way to do this that has perfect outcomes already logged in huge work threads.



if you leave the tank in the clean condition it's the most possible stability you can get while you are gone. your ORP will be reset to the best possible condition due to organics removal. your oxygenation will be highest because massive amounts of 02-consuming bacteria will be removed in the sand cleaning process and by cleaning the rocks in the specific way we do to prep long-term nano reefs.

Its not that adding things to your tank in its current condition is bad or will fail, its that they don't account for variables involved with someone else reefing for you, vs you, for the next month.

and a clean system does. in the ways people can mess up things can die, power can go out etc a cleaned system will last longer every single time. to give your tank the best chance it should be detail cleaned like we do in work threads

and the uglies hand-removed off the rocks in between corals using a certain method. all clean sand, reassembled as a skip cycle deep cleaned tank. it will shine

and it will be the strongest it can be while you are out. Adding animals wouldn't be needed at this point, why add something that can die while you are gone. maximize what's there. we have a thread with forty pages of rip cleaning, if you want a custom job post your current tank pics here and we'll run the cleaning order vs having to read forty pages of before and after jobs.

what seems like would destabilize is actually the safest thing you can do, irony rules reefing. since nano reefs are small, the ways they run have converged into very well predictable outcomes. the clean system addresses every known nano reef malady that can happen within reason while you are gone, it would be good to run it even if you weren't leaving, because a cleaned reef looks sharp, runs efficient like an engine, and has room for you to be feeding it vs withholding feed trying to starve an uglies issue.