Travel Anxiety? Do you have it and how do you remedy it?

Do you have travel anxiety when it comes to your saltwater reef aquarium?

  • Yes

    Votes: 279 53.6%
  • Somewhat

    Votes: 168 32.2%
  • No

    Votes: 68 13.1%
  • Other (please explain)

    Votes: 6 1.2%

  • Total voters
    521

vabben

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1. Do you have travel anxiety when it comes to your saltwater reef aquarium?
Yes.
2. How do you mitigate problems happening while you're away? What plans or people do you have in place?
I top off my ATO, and make sure my wife at least looks at the tank once a day and feeds. If something god forbid tragic happens, I have one reefer I could contact to help my wife.
3. What's the worse thing to ever happen while you were away?

My last time out of town for work, my tank had a full-blown hair algae attack. My wife must have been overfeeding pellets. A good cleaning and water change it started to turn around.

I need to implement more automation to my tank, auto feeder, and auto testing to alleviate some of the anxiety.
 

bReefedBaker

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No matter how prepared you are it seems like it never fails that when you're "out of town" something is going to go wrong with your reef tank. It could be a GFCI trips, a pump quits working, a fish quits eating, the ATO runs out of water, it could be so many things. If there's going to be a problem it seems like it's going to happen while you are traveling. Or maybe it's just me? Meh. Let's talk about it today!

1. Do you have travel anxiety when it comes to your saltwater reef aquarium?

2. How do you mitigate problems happening while you're away? What plans or people do you have in place?

3. What's the worse thing to ever happen while you were away?



travel anxiety.jpg


I'm way too new in the hobby and I haven't traveled since aquarium setup. I'm just a R2R member that participates in @revhtree / Reef2Reef's Daily Questions because this forum is the best on the web. Active members on here are so helpful and I wouldn't be where I am today without them! Many thanks to all thus far! #Righteous
 

AJsReef

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Thanks for sharing that AJ. I have to get a Webcam as well. Is there a particular kind that you recommend to work with the Apex? Apex is my soux-reefer. I control it, and it controls my reef :)

I actually use Wyze cameras and their accompanying app, they were super cheap at the time ($20). Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with integrating cameras into the Apex ecosystem. From what I read awhile back, Wyze weren’t compatible so just figured I’d use the proprietary app. For what it’s worth, they are great little cameras. You can throw in a microSD for video playback up to several days as well. We use them for the tank and cats when we are gone :)
 

Janet Belanger

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1. Do you have travel anxiety when it comes to your saltwater reef aquarium?
Absolutely!

2. How do you mitigate problems happening while you're away? What plans or people do you have in place?

We have dogs as well and so it's easier and actually less costly to get a house sitter that can manage the aquarium and the dogs. I run an Apex so I get alerts if something is amiss. I also offer the house sitter the information for the local facebook group that always seem to be willing to jump in to help.

3. What's the worse thing to ever happen while you were away?

Algae outbreak while I was gone for three weeks driving the Blue Ridge Parkway. There was so much algae that the overflow weirs were completely blocked and the tank overflowed. I got a call from the house sitter in panic mode and wet socks, asking what to do.
 

Bruce Burnett

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No set it up so it can go a couple weeks. Never had anyone I could have watch tank.
 

MartinM

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1) Cameras on every tank, on a separate internet connection with battery backups for the connection and the cameras
2) HYDROS on every tank, on their own dedicated internet connection with their own battery backups for both the Hydros and the internet connection
3) Separate circuits and Battery backups at the equipment level for all pumps
4) Battery backups at the system level for everything
5) Full home battery backup and full home generator (in the works)
6) Staff checks on the aquarium daily and is available on-call
7) I don’t leave for more than about 3 nights
 

puffdragon

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1. I have another reefer check the tank every couple of days. We keep up with changes we each make to our tanks for familiarity.
2. Check the Apex for important parameters.
3. Camera in front of the display and frag tanks /sump area to help trouble shoot any issues that come up.
4. Keep spares of return pumps and heaters.
 

stanleo

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I have an Apex which help me keep an eye on things. And I have detailed instructions on how to feed may various tanks while I am away for my nephew to help me with. Before I go on vacation I am going to get a feeder and plug my mixing station pump up to the Apex so I can fill the top off water up every four days. Beyond that, hope.
 

MnFish1

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1. Do you have travel anxiety when it comes to your saltwater reef aquarium?
Somewhat... Depending on how long we're away
2. How do you mitigate problems happening while you're away? What plans or people do you have in place?
1. Most of the time a house sitter - who has a basic knowledge of the tank
2. A natural gas generator that comes on automatically.
3. Prayer.
4. Not making changes (water change, equipment, dosing, etc - before (especially) a long trip
3. What's the worse thing to ever happen while you were away?
Everything thats wrong has happened while we were away.

1. Apex failure - total tank crash. (the one time we did not have a house sitter)
2. Repeat of #1 - after a power outage and the apex didn't reset
3. it just seems like something unexpected always happens
 

Alexusmc

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1. Do you have travel anxiety when it comes to your saltwater reef aquarium?
I travel 3 to 4 times a year and voted YESSS!

2. How do you mitigate problems happening while you're away? What plans or people do you have in place?
Now that I have an automatic feeder, APEX, ATO, and video camera, my next door neighbor can check my ATO reservoir and feed frozen foods every other day (or less frequent) when I'm away for a week. I set up a wyze camera in front of the tank with the sump cabinet doors open.

3. What's the worse thing to ever happen while you were away?
My Diamond Goby managed to jump out through a small opening and land on the cover. My Mandarin disappeared. My ATO reservoir ran out of water. I use a 5 gal jug now that can last me a week.
 
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Gorgar

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Funny that I just now see this thread, I'm currently sitting on a plane taking me to my 6 month deployment, I started my tank almost a year ago thinking I was finally done deploying only to find out a month ago I was wrong! So my fiancé has been trained up and I've put as much automation as I possibly can on the tank and hoping for the best!
 

Steph72

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Between two reef tanks and two high maintenance parrots, travel is simply not an option lol. It’s ok though...I actually hate traveling. Cramped germ ridden airplanes, crowded airports, hotels with god only knows what on the bed linens...no thanks. I’m happy to just stay home on my vacation time. Haha
 

ihavecrabs

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No matter how prepared you are it seems like it never fails that when you're "out of town" something is going to go wrong with your reef tank. It could be a GFCI trips, a pump quits working, a fish quits eating, the ATO runs out of water, it could be so many things. If there's going to be a problem it seems like it's going to happen while you are traveling. Or maybe it's just me? Meh. Let's talk about it today!

1. Do you have travel anxiety when it comes to your saltwater reef aquarium?

2. How do you mitigate problems happening while you're away? What plans or people do you have in place?

3. What's the worse thing to ever happen while you were away?



travel anxiety.jpg
No anxiety for me. I used to get it bad and trying to teach a non-reefer to test (even with easy test kits like Hanna) is not fun! Plus, do you trust their results if it is off or unexpected? Do you change dosing based on it?

Three things that made anxiety a thing of the past for me.

1) Apex. The constant visibility for basics like Temp and pH to determine if things might have gone awry. The ability to set automated responses (temp too high, turn heaters and lights off). And the ability to self-top off the Top Off water!

2) Alkalinity tester - previously I owned the KHG and just recently switched to the Trident. This alone has made leaving the tank easy.

3) Cameras. One pointed at the sump and another pointed at the display(s). I can always check in to see how the corals and livestock look.
 

chaka_doll

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1. Do you have travel anxiety when it comes to your saltwater reef aquarium?

Yes

2. How do you mitigate problems happening while you're away? What plans or people do you have in place?

Luckily we have a cousin who lives 10 minutes away who is also in the hobby. Her and her husband takes care of our tank while we are out for more than 2 weeks.

3. What's the worse thing to ever happen while you were away?

Our heater tripped during the dead of winter, our pipes froze. Good thing we did not have our saltwater tank then, only the freshwater.
 

Laith

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I've automated things like water changes and refill of ATO tank. I use my GHL to monitor everything. The KH director keeps KH stable, hopefully soon the ION Director will do the same for Calcium though that rarely varies much.

I make sure the fresh saltwater tank for AWC is full. At 1% per day it will last two weeks, if I'm planning to be away longer I'll reduce it to 0.5% a day.

Make sure the carbonate and calcium reservoirs are full. Auto fish feeder full. Skimmer output to the Avast bucket is working and the bucket is empty. Clean both ATO system level sensors (two Osmolators, one backs up the other).

I also make sure the two webcams (one above the tank and one above the sump) are working.

Even with all of the above things can go wrong. So when I leave on vacation I leave the wife at home! :p :p
 

WizzWolfe

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I never can relax when I leave my tanks in someone else's care. At least I have a Nest camera to watch them
 

Paul B

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I bring my tank with me, but lately the pilots frown on that. :rolleyes:
 

backinthereef

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I read this thread a bit ago and then couldn't find it when I came in again. This is one of the reasons I gave up the hobby because I retired and wanted to travel - I think it is really difficult to travel a lot and keep a reef. Now that the pandemic has limited travel, I am looking at getting back into the hobby :) I have truly missed having a slice of the ocean in my living room!
 

bmeily

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1. Do you have travel anxiety when it comes to your saltwater reef aquarium?
Yes. I would think anyone in this hobby would. With so many variables and equipment to go wrong or fail. Then the older the tank the older the equipment and more expensive the loss of grown out coral and loved fish

2. How do you mitigate problems happening while you're away? What plans or people do you have in place?
A monitoring system and cameras will help you and your family reduce the stress level. It would be way easier if you knew what was wrong and you could tell your spouse was to do or tell someone to come by.
And a least one person locally that is capable or quick fixes or help. Hopefully its your spouse or roommate but I don't think that's most peoples situation. You still would need someone outside the family for when your whole family is traveling.
Also transitioning to the way your going to feed your tank way before you leave. Like suddenly stop feeding phyto and frozen to running a feeder on pellets for 2 weeks. Not only is it a change to your animals but also you parameters.
A monitoring and testing system in place just makes sense when your livestock investment get to a certain point. How much does a reboot cost, not much in a young tank, but there is time. How much would you pay to not go through the ugly stage again or months of QT fish and coral and not to mention the cost of coral and fish these days. When you can say I would pay $500-1000 to get where I am today in an instant. Basically 500-1000 in restocking cost in livestock then it's time.
3. What's the worse thing to ever happen while you were away?

I lost a 6in open brain coral.
I was working away from home for 4.5 months. I gave my wife a crash course and a notebook with a list before I left, not advisable btw. I don't think anything was tested the whole time and the feeding style was changed
 

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

  • Ball valves.

    Votes: 43 48.3%
  • Gate valves.

    Votes: 47 52.8%
  • Check valves.

    Votes: 20 22.5%
  • None.

    Votes: 23 25.8%
  • Other.

    Votes: 9 10.1%
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