Three week vacation

[magikfly]

You read the title, we'll be gone for almost 3 weeks. My 10 month old 110G reef is packed with SPS. I will have someone come in daily to feed the fish and top off container as well as clean the skimmer cup. I'm having doubts about my 2-part dosing though. Usually I measure alk/cal weekly and adjust accordingly and the dosage has been increasing exponentially as the frags grow out. I don't want to have the "reefsitter" do tests because I'm unwilling to rely on those results. I really can't seem to figure out what the best course of action is here, I guess I'm worried about an alk swing. Am I overthinking it?

 

[Utubereefer]

Id say you’re overthinking it. You should be fine as long as you trust your tank sitter. Maybe video call him for his first few visits.

 

[Skep18]

You're more courageous than I am! I'm sure it's all mental but a tough mental game for sure.

 

[bubbgee]

I got the Apex and Trident for this purpose. Maybe something along those lines to monitor kH at least?

 

[billyocean]

Ph will be higher due to lower c02 bc nobody is home. Alk consumption will go up. A way to monitor and adjust accordingly would be good.

 

[Science/G]

I just added a few chunky pieces of SPS to my 30 gallon reef over the past three weeks, and I'm still trying to dial in my All for Reef and Balling B alkalinity component to meet demand. I'm going out of town in a couple days, for only 5 days, but I'm still worried about getting home to an alkalinity of 6.9. ugghhh. My Acropora are just taking off!

I agree with others if you could monitor alkalinity while you are away that would be key.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

When I had people come and check on my tank, I would always FaceTime them and walk them through certain steps. Never had issues doing this.

 

[Dburr1014]

You read the title, we'll be gone for almost 3 weeks. My 10 month old 110G reef is packed with SPS. I will have someone come in daily to feed the fish and top off container as well as clean the skimmer cup. I'm having doubts about my 2-part dosing though. Usually I measure alk/cal weekly and adjust accordingly and the dosage has been increasing exponentially as the frags grow out. I don't want to have the "reefsitter" do tests because I'm unwilling to rely on those results. I really can't seem to figure out what the best course of action is here, I guess I'm worried about an alk swing. Am I overthinking it?

When are you leaving?

Whatever you do, have everything in place at least a couple days in advance to make sure all is working.

My first advice, get a auto fish feeder.
What if your person can't make it to the house? Auto feeder will almost guarantee they get something. Of course that can fail too. But even if you set the auto feeder to a low amount, if person can still come in and feed also. They can't make it your fish will always get something for the day.

Set up the 2 part a little higher before you go. Test it daily. You should see a rise in alkalinity in calcium before you go. That will compensate you're being away for 3 weeks and your corals growing more. Somewhere in the middle of your trip the tide will turn and alk/cal will lower. You don't want to spike it, just a slow rise. You need to be prepared well in advance of leaving.

 

[magikfly]

When are you leaving?

Whatever you do, have everything in place at least a couple days in advance to make sure all is working.

My first advice, get a auto fish feeder.
What if your person can't make it to the house? Auto feeder will almost guarantee they get something. Of course that can fail too. But even if you set the auto feeder to a low amount, if person can still come in and feed also. They can't make it your fish will always get something for the day.

Set up the 2 part a little higher before you go. Test it daily. You should see a rise in alkalinity in calcium before you go. That will compensate you're being away for 3 weeks and your corals growing more. Somewhere in the middle of your trip the tide will turn and alk/cal will lower. You don't want to spike it, just a slow rise. You need to be prepared well in advance of leaving.

I still have a month before we go.
This has gotten me thinking, what if I reduce the photoperiod to say 6h or LED intensity by 20%? Surely that would offset the increase in alk usage? Taken with your suggestion, which of these options have the lowest chance of upsetting the tank?

 

[magikfly]

When I had people come and check on my tank, I would always FaceTime them and walk them through certain steps. Never had issues doing this.

I don't think that'll work, we'll be on the other side of the planet.

 

[Dburr1014]

I still have a month before we go.
This has gotten me thinking, what if I reduce the photoperiod to say 6h or LED intensity by 20%? Surely that would offset the increase in alk usage? Taken with your suggestion, which of these options have the lowest chance of upsetting the tank?

I personally would prefer to reduce the brightness over reducing the time.
But that was a great point. It will slow them down somewhat.
I think of it as cloud cover. 10 or 20% should be just fine while your away.

 

[dwest]

I travel a lot. Three weeks would be a normal trip for me. I would get an auto feeder going now (I use 2 eheims). I use an alkatronic to measure alkalinity as its consumption will rise when you leave. If you don’t have acros it probably doesn’t matter, but it sounds like you do. If I were “flying blind” I would increase alkalinity input to the tank by about 10% and call it a day.

Your idea of reducing brightness should work too in theory. I’ve never tried that as my method works for me. Good luck.

 

[BryanM]

You read the title, we'll be gone for almost 3 weeks. My 10 month old 110G reef is packed with SPS. I will have someone come in daily to feed the fish and top off container as well as clean the skimmer cup. I'm having doubts about my 2-part dosing though. Usually I measure alk/cal weekly and adjust accordingly and the dosage has been increasing exponentially as the frags grow out. I don't want to have the "reefsitter" do tests because I'm unwilling to rely on those results. I really can't seem to figure out what the best course of action is here, I guess I'm worried about an alk swing. Am I overthinking it?

I guess I would ask what the increases have been over the last couple months.

Either way, I think I'd choose a dose and stick with that for whoever is tank sitting. If you're a little low when you get home it shouldn't be a big deal, and I can't imagine your tank, if you used a maintenance dose like this, would be more than 1dkh lower than when you left.

You can bring that back up when you get home and not stress out the tank sitter.

I would also strongly recommend an auto feeder, unless your tank sitter has a tank themselves. There are way too many horror stories of tank sitters WAY over feeding and crashing tanks. With an auto feeder they just have to feed the feeder.

 

[magikfly]

I guess I would ask what the increases have been over the last couple months.

Either way, I think I'd choose a dose and stick with that for whoever is tank sitting. If you're a little low when you get home it shouldn't be a big deal, and I can't imagine your tank, if you used a maintenance dose like this, would be more than 1dkh lower than when you left.

You can bring that back up when you get home and not stress out the tank sitter.

I would also strongly recommend an auto feeder, unless your tank sitter has a tank themselves. There are way too many horror stories of tank sitters WAY over feeding and crashing tanks. With an auto feeder they just have to feed the feeder.

My is wall to wall SPS, alk consumption has been increasing exponentially, not linearly, the last weeks so it's tough to pin a number on it. I make my own frozen food with regular ice cube trays and will prepare 3 weeks worth. All the sitter has to do is thaw one cube and chunk it in the tank.

 

[aquaman67]

Blink Cameras are on sale on Amazon right now.

Get a camera

Download the app

You don’t need a subscription to just view, you only need a subscription to store video clips.

You can even get motion alerts so you will know when your tank sitter is there. I think you can even talk to them over the camera.

Anyway you can check on your tank for piece of mind.

 

[Johnd651]

I went on a 3 week trip at the beginning of the year. Had ATO, auto feeder, dosing pump with AFR all setup and running. Also had everything on KASA TPLink outlets, so if I needed to manually reset something remotely, I could. For the ATO, I used a 5 gallon pail of RODI instead of my normal top off container. I made sure the AFR was full (its lasted me 6 months already, but easier then running out). I used a Wyze OG camera to watch the tank. I did make sure to do one final water change the day before we left. Everything worked and ran as intended.

Honestly, the only issue I ran into was the algea. I had a small bryopsis issue, that took over the tank. I am still trying to recover from the algea.

 

[Troylee]

Mine is packed with sps and I’ve been away 2 weeks without issue.. that’s the joy of autofeeders and a apex with a doser set up on it.. I can control it anywhere at any time. Never had an issue this way but nothing is fool proof! At least the apex will say hey your alk is low or what ever and I can make a call to reefer friend to check it out if needed.