Vacation care.

[sumithnarayanan]

Hi All,

I was wondering how folks are managing reef aquariums when they are off for a vacation? I need to top off water and also feed frozen shrimps ( since I was told flakes were bad and not enough).

I have a 180 gallon reef aquarium with fish and some corals, lost most of my corals last year when the water parameters went bad. I had an aquarium company but when their employee left and the new person did a bad job, so I had to fire them. Ever since I am taking care of it myself (..and I am happy doing that).

Thanks.

 

[Mid_Reefkeeper]

if you get it setup, it can run for a while unattended.

Put lights on a timer (you should do this anyway).

Get an ATO with a large enough reservoir (I have a 9 gal in normal use and a 20 gal I can move over when I’m away). This is usually the limiter to how long it can go completely automated.

An auto feeder will take care of feeding. Put in some sort of slowly sinking pellets.

Then just make sure it’s setup and running a few days early. If you have someone with some aquarium knowledge, having them check in is helpful.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

IMO any reef tank should be able to go 1-2 weeks on its own with the precautions mentioned above, namely a large ATO reservoir and an auto feeder. A flake or pellet diet for 1 or 2 weeks is fine.

 

[MnFish1]

Hi All,

I was wondering how folks are managing reef aquariums when they are off for a vacation? I need to top off water and also feed frozen shrimps ( since I was told flakes were bad and not enough).

I have a 180 gallon reef aquarium with fish and some corals, lost most of my corals last year when the water parameters went bad. I had an aquarium company but when their employee left and the new person did a bad job, so I had to fire them. Ever since I am taking care of it myself (..and I am happy doing that).

Thanks.

This is what I did. I trained someone to do the basics (like top off water), divided the food into pre-measured daily amounts and either froze or left on the counter as required. I wrote the instructions for other things like double check the water levels, make sure x is working, make sure y is working and put them into an excel spreadsheet as the rows, and the days in a column. Nonetheless, it never seemed to fail that something would break the first night we left. I fed my fish flake food (majority of diet) and Larrys reef foods as a treat. I never had a problem. Contrary to popular belief sometimes dry foods have better nutritional value from a balanced perspective as compared to trying to match a fish's diet with live or frozen foods.

 

[MichaelReefer]

I have a 10 gallon ATO. I always have it maxed out before I leave (gets me 3-4 days in summer) and then I put an adequate amount of five gallon home depot buckets with RODI next to it for my fish sitter (work wife) to top off the ATO container as need be. I made her a video of what to do and she has the phone number to my friend that owns the LFS that can help if need be. She knows how to do the basics (Check and refill ATO, drain skimmer, check the fish and clean glass)