So IT happened while you were out of town....NO!!!!!!

[revhtree]

Ok so a little bit of click bait there but all to often "it" becomes a reality for many reefers who travel. IT DOES HAPPEN and what is "it?" The "it" is something bad happening to your reef!

Honestly it seems that if something bad is going to happen it's going to happen while you are out of town and no matter what you do there is no perfect way to mitigate the potential disaster. My wife even makes comments about "how this only happens when your out of town." :/

BUT that doesn't mean that we don't do everything we can to make sure we have a plan or process in place just in case something goes wrong. The ATO quiets working, for some reason the lights are not coming on, the tank is cloudy, there is a leak, the return pump goes down, etc..

So this should be a great discussion and I would like to propose a few questions to you!

1. How do you know when something is going wrong? What do you have in place that would tell you something is not right?

2. Is there someone who you trust to handle the situation? A friend in the hobby, neighbor or family member?

3. Do you have a plan in place or a way to be able to walk someone through the issues that are taking place?

4. Whats the worse thing you have ever had happen while you were away?

image via @EMTDIVER16

 

[Crabs McJones]

1. How do you know when something is going wrong? The only way is if my apex alerts me of an issue. Otherwise if I'm going out of town for an extensive period of time I get a tank sitter.

2. Is there someone who you trust to handle the situation? A friend in the hobby, neighbor or family member? My uncle watches my tank for me if and when I'm away. He has two amazing reef tanks of his own so there isnt a shred if doubt in my mind that he can care for mine in my absence
.

3. Do you have a plan in place or a way to be able to walk someone through the issues that are taking place? Again, my uncle. Hes been reef keeping for almost 18 years, no issue he cant handle while I'm gone. I do the same for him in return

4. Whats the worse thing you have ever had happen while you were away? Worse thing to happen while I was away so far has just been my ato running empty.. (huge knock on wood!!)

 

[jda]

1 ). We have a house and dog sitter that looks for "lights on" and "swimming fishes." He will add water in the reservoir if it needs it.

2). There is a local hobbyist who is on call. I do the same for him when he heads out of town.

3). He is a pro and can figure stuff out. I leave extra co2 tank, return pump, box of heaters in a place to find. Plus, he knows where my storage is with everything you need to probably start up 2-3 other tanks.

4). Nothing. I buy only equipment that has decade-long track record and the stuff has served me well.

Edit: Few tips... have a plan that does not involve your input... notes, videos, etc. Like Ron below, we were out of most kind of cell/text/facetime range when we were in Europe for 2 months in 2017. There was no way to access a webcam. Also, label your cords at least with blue tape and sharpie. Flow and return pumps on separate circuits. Heaters in the tank as well a sump while you are gone.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Ha! I'm leaving on a 10 day vacation to the Arctic Circle (no phone and very poor internet) and the worst part is, I already know I'm having an algae outbreak! So I know my 10 days away are going to be hard on my system, my care taker and even me (when I have the spare time to think about it).

So I've already started feeding about 50% less (I was kind of a heavy feeder anyway). I've been running the skimmer at a bit higher level. I've done a 10% water change. Every day I'm blowing and brushing this soft, bubble filled algae off the rocks and coral and changing the filter sock. I've covered the tank with a heavy, dark towel, cut out all the white, red and green leds so I'm running only blue (good for the corals, not so good for the algae). My care taker is aware of the issue and has been told not to worry. Whatever the situation is when we get home, I'll deal with it.

Great opening post Rev!

 

[revhtree]

1. How do you know when something is going wrong?

So for me I am ready when it comes to "knowing" when something is wrong. I have an Apex controller that alerts me of issues but just as important for me is web cameras! I have many of them set up around my tank in strategic places. They are cheap and gives me a ton of peace of mind being able to check in and see what is going on. I have cameras mounted to see the whole tank room, right and left side of the reef, front of the reef, frag tank, sump and the auto top off.


2. Is there someone who you trust to handle the situation? A friend in the hobby, neighbor or family member?

Sadly for me I don't have anyone "in the hobby" available for emergency tank situations. I do have a few family members that have access to house keys who take turns feeding my fish etc. that I can call on.


3. Do you have a plan in place or a way to be able to walk someone through the issues that are taking place?

So this is where I need to get better. I don't have a plan but I have made some efforts to be prepared in case something occurs. One of the things I do is make phone videos of what to do in case a particular issue arises. Like my auto top off for example. If for some reason the ATO decides to die on me I have a video showing what to do that I can send to a family member that details to them what to do. Face time is good too but it's much easier having a video ready. That being said I need more videos and I'm totally unprepared for a major event like a tank leak or something like that.

4. Whats the worse thing you have ever had happen while you were away?

Thank the Lord that the worst thing that has ever happened was my ato quit working and the main return almost running dry.

 

[andrewkw]

I just worry about everything when I leave. Living in the middle of no where sucks for many reasons, but having no reefer friends to watch the tank is up there. I constantly watch the twitter feed of my power company when I'm away. I leave extension cords leading to all my tanks and the generator fully gassed up with extra gas cans. I have once had to call my neighbor and ask him to go into my house and setup the generator. I felt extremely bad asking this much of someone I barely know but it was either that or let everything die. To make things somewhat easier I leave green tape on all power cords that need to be plugged into generator. Someone has to come feed my cats but since there are no reefers I just have them check for floods or fires and don't worry about feeding the tank.

If something really crazy happened like a tank exploding I would probably ask my closest reefer friend who lives an hour away to go and check things out and see if anything is salvageable.

My plan is to just hope for the best. I prepare for a power failure but everything else is basically left to fend for itself.

The worst thing that ever happened was actually before I moved to the middle of no where. When I lived in a city I always had people I trust come feed the tank while I was away and just check on things. They weren't always reefers but always had contact numbers of local reefers they or I could call if a more serious problem arose. I had my aunt feeding my fish, just before I left my Chevron Tang bit off a tiny mollusk from the rock work. He suffered a mouth injury and it took a long time to get it off his mouth. He ended up dying and not a single trace of him was left. Eventually a few bones popped up but this was my largest fish in a 180 gallon tank that I had for 7 years and he just vanished without a trace. He probably would have died anyway since the injury happened before I left but I wasn't around to try and help.

 

[SDK]

When out of town on business my wife is great. She loves the tank as much as I do.

On family trips, I have an ATO and unbridled optimism if that counts for anything

 

[LilElroyJetson]

I am currently on my 7th day out of town and away from my tank which has only been up for a short while, when I return Sunday it will be 10 days away from the tank. The tank is pretty automated with a lot of the most important items like my heaters and pumps doubled up on for redundancy, and this helps the most but I have a couple additional steps in place.

1. How do you know when something is going wrong? What do you have in place that would tell you something is not right?

I’m in the process of installing a Seneye Monitor to keep track of temperature, ammonia, and pH. Between these three I should know pretty quickly if something is wrong. I’d prefer to never have someone other than myself dosing additives or elements to the water, so those will have to wait for me.

My life saver is my cloud cam. I log onto the app and within seconds visually and auditorally I can tell: (1) If I have power in my apartment as well as if there is water on the floor, and (2) if my return pump is running by listening to hear the water flowing through my system (the video and audio is very clear).

2. Is there someone who you trust to handle the situation? A friend in the hobby, neighbor or family member?

I don’t trust anybody but myself with the tank and I don’t have another hobbyist around unfortunately but I have a good friend who I trust to go to my department, top off my ATO, and FaceTime me to allow me to run through a visual rundown and checklist of items to check on with him.

My biggest fear is a serious tank leak and I don’t think there is any precaution I could take that allows me to handle that while I’m away. I will know about the leak from my monitoring system, so my best option is to fly back and save what is in the tank. I’m in the process of upgrading to a much more well constructed custom tank in hopes of safeguarding against this.

3. Do you have a plan in place or a way to be able to walk someone through the issues that are taking place?

My plan I have in place is to have my friend check the return pump chamber level, check my ATO reservoir level, FaceTime me and take photos to show me my livestock and general tank condition, and if there are any serious issues, I will either fly home, or if this is not possible, I have a friend who works at my LFS who I would pay to drop by my apartment and trust they could put a bandaid on whatever has happened.

My BIGGEST fail safe are my two optical switches that kill my return pump. One is set inside my tank above my water line near my overflow so if my tanks water rises (indicating a clogged drain), the return pump is killed and it makes a loud annoying alarm sound that I can hear through my cloud cam. The other optical switch is in the return pump chamber of my sump so that if for some reason the sump leaks out or the ATO stops working, the return pump gets shut off so it doesn’t run dry (also have a check valve installed so prevent back siphon) and again, I get a loud annoying alarm.

Between these failsafes, the tank should survive and even do well for a substantial period of time while I’m out. I’m looking into a backup battery solution as well in anticipating for a few power outages in my building during a hot Arizona summer when everyone is pumping their AC should I be out of town.

4. What’s the worst thing you have ever had happen while you were away?

The worst thing I’ve ever had happen while I was away was having a HOB skimmer overflow and drain 1/3 of my tank water all over my apartment. It was disgusting and a huge mess to deal with. Luckily mostly everything survived as the livestock, rock, and powerheads were still submerged, but it was still a mess. I’ll never put myself in that situation again.

Looking forward to hearing from everyone else!

 

[leepink23]

1. How do you know when something is going wrong? What do you have in place that would tell you something is not right? I have an apex with alarms, plus my neighbor comes over daily to check on basics and feed the fish.

2. Is there someone who you trust to handle the situation? A friend in the hobby, neighbor or family member? Neighbor that I pay to take care of our pets, I have trained her on the basics and she likes making money.

3. Do you have a plan in place or a way to be able to walk someone through the issues that are taking place? I write instructions, but have my return pump and powerheads on separate circuits, plus a battery backup for 1 of my mp40

4. Whats the worse thing you have ever had happen while you were away? So far just a skimmer overflowing. I learned never make adjustments or change equipment before heading out of town.

 

[dansreef]

1. How do you know when something is going wrong? What do you have in place that would tell you something is not right?
I used to think having automation was going to be helpful here. I have an apex that I can pull up via the net and turn on and off different devices. Of course, it just doesn't work like that yet. If someone could really come out with a solution that could really give you real-time and proactive information, it could be a huge hit for the hobby.

2. Is there someone who you trust to handle the situation? A friend in the hobby, neighbor or family member?
I am fortunate that my next door neighbor is as obsessed with the hobby as I am. When I am out of town, he is my back up. When he is out, I am his.

3. Do you have a plan in place or a way to be able to walk someone through the issues that are taking place?
I am divorced with two teenaged daughters that live with me. If something were to go wrong, I have worked with them to know what to do... a) call my neighbor, b) call me, c) dont make things worse..... etc. The last resort, they know a LFS number they can call if the @#$$ hits the fan.

4. Whats the worse thing you have ever had happen while you were away?
I have been very fortunate. I primarily work from home and have for years. When I do travel, knock on wood, not much has happened that has been major. Maybe the ATO ran out of water. That said, I have had some major failures of pumps that have resulted in a bit of wet carpeting and bruised ego... Fortunately, the failures happened while I was home and able to quickly resolve the problem.... and of course, fix thing before anyone notices....

 

[CindyKz]

How do you know if something's going wrong? Apex, camera, and 2 tank sitters. One has amazing saltwater tanks but works long hours. The other has amazing freshwater tanks and is learning saltwater. She doesn't necessarily know how to fix issues but can recognize major "bad" things and call the friend with the amazing SW tanks.

Is there someone you trust to handle the situation? See the first question

Do you have a plan in place or a way to be able to walk someone through the issues that are taking place? I leave written instructions for the basics. When on vacation I'm usually accessible by phone anyway.

What's the worst thing you have had happen while away? My apex kept losing contact with fusion, so my tank sitters were manually resetting it (bad idea #1, keep reading). One of the resets wiped out all of my programming, so the apex returned to all of the default outlet programming (which I didn't realize would happen). I didn't have my equipment plugged into the appropriate default outlets - I thought by re-programming I was overwriting the factory programming (REALLY bad idea #2). On one tank the ATO was plugged into the default return pump so it ran constantly until dry and flooded the floor and that tank's EB. Fortunately the EB was plugged into a GCFI outlet, as was the security camera. It was the message that the security camera was disconnected that alerted me to the problem. On the other tank, the ATO was plugged into a light outlet so it only ran for a while before turning off. No flood, but I had a salinity and alk swing that wiped out almost all of the SPS in the tank. Ironically, the tank that totally flooded was my softie tank and had no major issues. All critters are fine. My tank sitter cleaned up the mess the best she could and got the lights and powerheads for the small softie tank plugged into wall outlets. Everything was off for just a few hours.

So the moral of the story is 1. Your apex will run fine even if you can't see it on Fusion, so leave it alone until you are there to deal with issues. 2. Plug stuff into the correct outlets!

Neptune was AWESOME helping me figure out what happened and they were able to retrieve my programming so it was a simple matter of cutting and pasting it back in when I got home.

 

[ca1ore]

It's one of the cruel ironies of reef keeping that bad stuff happens when you are away (and I'm away a lot).

1. How do you know when something is going wrong? I can monitor the tank remotely through apex and a web camera. Ability to mitigate through apex is very limited (and possibly unwise).

2. Is there someone whom you trust to handle the situation? Inexperienced tank sitters (including well-meaning family members) are really good at making a problem worse, or creating a problem all on their own. I have an 'emergency' agreement with a local reefer in the event of, well, an emergency.

3. Do you have a plan in place or a way to be able to walk someone through the issues that are taking place? I have this thing called a mobile phone …..

4. Whats the worst thing you have ever had happen while you were away? Long before I owned an apex I had a house boiler failure while on holiday in January. House temp dropped to 40 degrees. Tank heating had no problem maintaining 10 degrees above ambient; but not 38. Tank temp dropped to around 55 degrees. All corals lost, most of the fish lost. Ironically, the animal that seemed unaffected was a magnifica anemone - something generally considered to be quite sensitive. Apparently not mine! Even if I had an apex, it would have been difficult to quickly resolve the problem.

Note: how many people fixed the grammar LOL?

 

[madweazl]

The plan is call wife and walk her through some troubleshooting steps. If that doesnt work, a local reefer runs a maintenance company and I'll contact him to fix it if my wife isn't capable. So far, a heater failure was the biggest issue but the controller alerted me and my wife was able to remove the old one and install the new one.

 

[MnFish1]

1. How do you know when something is going wrong? What do you have in place that would tell you something is not right? I have an apex - and a 24/7 house sitter thats well oriented to the tank/fish, etc before leaving.

2. Is there someone who you trust to handle the situation? A friend in the hobby, neighbor or family member? The LFS in our area has a maintenance system with a 24 hour emergency number that the person checking on the tank can all. Also have a neighbor that can help in an emergency.

3. Do you have a plan in place or a way to be able to walk someone through the issues that are taking place? Yes.

4. Whats the worse thing you have ever had happen while you were away?
While on vacation last spring, the apex EB failed - and no power was getting to the tank (there were also no alerts coming from the apex). The house sitter just noticed 'the water seemed cold'. Was able to walk her through re-plugging everything into new electrical equipment etc.

The most important thing is I try to keep my tank simple. I don't rely on the Apex to dose. I have a fail safe on my heater. I dont have an ATO, automatic feeder, etc. If Im going to be gone only for a short time - I might take the skimmer cup off the skimmer so that oxygenation continues but there is no danger for overflow. I also put the daily amount to be fed into individual baggies - so there is no overfeeding. Lastly - I dont do anything major (big water change, add new livestock, etc) before leaving.

PS - also have a natural gas generator that can supply most of the house (including tanks) with electricity in case of a power failure) with an auto transfer switch

 

[kswan]

Just got back from 2 weeks in Maui today. I have a neighbor (14 year old) that looks after the tank when I’m away. By creating a simple checklist I feel that things are in good hands. My apex will also alert me to any issues. If things go pear shaped I have a LFS that can handle anything major. Here is the checklist I gave him. Other than a few new frags that got knocked off all was well.

I also have a modified UPS battery backup with 2 large deep cycles to run the return and heater if necessary. I would be lying if there wasn’t some anxiety but I’m happy with my current plan.

 

[DeniseAndy]

I have a dog/tank/house sitter when we are gone. Usually for over 2 weeks at a time and out of country. I also have a friend, fellow reefer, and professional tank maintenance person on call if something is bad. He will come over whenever need it and I trust him to know what is going on. Knows most of my systems just fine. I am really lucky that way. I have done this for other reefers in the area too.
I expect my algae to be out of control when I get home, but that usually is not fatal to anything, just ugly.
I leave detailed instructions on feeding (when, how much) and it is all laid out in freezer or fridge, etc. I also have an refrigerated auto feeder if I feel it is needed to run, along with a dry autofeeder.

I also make sure that I do not have any new items in the tanks before I leave. Because we plan so far in advance, I make sure nothing is newer than about 2 months. I also do not change any equipment. I make sure water is changed and a full batch is ready in case.

 

[kswan]

I also make sure that I do not have any new items in the tanks before I leave. Because we plan so far in advance, I make sure nothing is newer than about 2 months. I also do not change any equipment. I make sure water is changed and a full batch is ready in case.

That is definitely good advice. I won’t do any last minute maintenance before a trip. It seems like a good idea to do a water change or other maintenance item right before you leave. That just opens an opportunity to forget something. Do it 2-3 days before so any issue can be corrected and the tank is left in a steady state.

 

[jsker]

I have my reef tank will

 

[vetteguy53081]

This is a good post and will get people to thinking and having a plan

1. How do you know when something is going wrong? I have a very trusted reefer who knows my tanks well.

2. Is there someone who you trust to handle the situation? Same trusted reefer who is both local and VERY experienced

3. Do you have a plan in place or a way to be able to walk someone through the issues that are taking place? Skype

4. Whats the worse thing you have ever had happen while you were away? My corals got spoiled. This fellow was topping off with Hi fortified RO water

 

[Snuggs]

It just occurred to me that vacations are harder because of my tank