Vacations - Who is your trusted source?

[vetteguy53081]

When it comes to travel, holidays and weekends, who or what is your trusted source for your tank?
It is a physical person or device that you place your tank towards?

While I have controllers and monitors, we often hear of something failing while we are away such as an ATO unit or heater. I have also a very experienced hobbyist that can stp daily to check on my tank. Some advantages is physical daily feeding, quick check of livestock and water level and house temperature.

As a tip especially during the summer, I unplug my heater until I get back and plug it back in to prevent heater failure. Auto feeder is my best friend in my absence

What is your source and tips if any ?

 

[Gumbies R Us]

ATO is a must when you go out of town.

Also, I have two people from our family that will come by and check on our tank every couple of days, to make sure everything is doing well and to feed our fish.

 

[vetteguy53081]

AIO is a must when you go out of town.

Also, I have two people from our family that will come by and check on our tank every couple of days, to make sure everything is doing well and to feed our fish.

AIO or ATO ?

 

[Gumbies R Us]

AIO or ATO ?

ATO typo

 

[Reign1]

Totally worry when I go on Vacation.
Did my best for piece of mind with a controller (Neptune Apex) so I check basic parameters when gone. I luckily had an experienced reefer that lives up the street check a couple times to top off ATO reservoir and give it a look. IT still freaks me out.

 

[Rhetoric]

I've got a 14yr old neighbor girl that feeds them! The rest is in the universes hand.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Totally worry when I go on Vacation.
Did my best for piece of mind with a controller (Neptune Apex) so I check basic parameters when gone. I luckily had an experienced reefer that lives up the street check a couple times to top off ATO reservoir and give it a look. IT still freaks me out.

It worries me every time too. I always feel like something terrible is going to happen every time i go out of town

 

[Shawn H!]

I travel every other week for work so my wife and youngest adult daughter have become solid aquarists / reef keepers because of that. I have 4K wifi cameras and powerstrips on all of my tanks so I am able to see them throughout the day to monitor the status. I have softy tanks so I do not have to dose anything.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I travel every other week for work so my wife and youngest adult daughter have become solid aquarists / reef keepers because of that. I have 4K wifi cameras and powerstrips on all of my tanks so I am able to see them throughout the day to monitor the status. I have softy tanks so I do not have to dose anything.

What cameras are you using?

 

[Shawn H!]

I travel every other week for work so my wife and youngest adult daughter have become solid aquarists / reef keepers because of that. I have 4K wifi cameras and powerstrips on all of my tanks so I am able to see them throughout the day to monitor the status. I have softy tanks so I do not have to dose anything.

What cameras are you using?

I bought the Tapo 4K cameras from Amazon. The picture carry is really good even with the blue lights on. I also have a ring camera mounted on the wall but the blue lights kill the picture quality on the ring cameras.


TP-Link Tapo 2K Pan/Tilt Security... Amazon product

 

[EuphyllinOHk]

My parents had a cichlid tank and a saltwater tank before some terrible, loud, annoying, and small people (not sure who but I heard they were bad) started taking up all their time. They've been keeping an eye on my tanks and have been pretty good about it.

The weekly pill organizers remove so much worry about over/under feeding. You control the portions and it pre-shoulders a responsibility for someone who is doing you a favor. If you've seen some of the horror stories, where a tank sitter dumped a whole jar of food into a tank and the aquarium owner comes back to a box of mountain dew and dead fish, and that scares you, get the pill organizer and hide the food.

 

[Shawn H!]

I travel every other week for work so my wife and youngest adult daughter have become solid aquarists / reef keepers because of that. I have 4K wifi cameras and powerstrips on all of my tanks so I am able to see them throughout the day to monitor the status. I have softy tanks so I do not have to dose anything.

What cameras are you using?

I bought the Tapo 4K cameras from Amazon. The picture carry is really good even with the blue lights on. I also have a ring camera mounted on the wall but the blue lights kill the picture quality on the ring cameras.


TP-Link Tapo 2K Pan/Tilt Security... Amazon product

 

[Ziggy17]

My wife when I have to go away, but when it’s a family vacay, we pay a neighbour’s daughter to feed the tank twice a day. Everything else are in my ATO and Neptune’s hands.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I will keep those in mind! We have blink cameras and they work well for watching our cats, but not so much our tank.

 

[Shawn H!]

I will keep those in mind! We have blink cameras and they work well for watching our cats, but not so much our tank.

That pan side to side and up and down also. It was a great buy in my opinion.

 

[RajM]

Depends on duration.
For a week I can depend on my devices.
Longer I will have a person come and check and atleast change the socks and report back if he sees anything suspicious.

Clean my ATO sensor for any buildup couple days ahead to make sure everything is working fine. I have Seneye which I only employ on travel, and it alerts me if it’s out of water, which means my ATO failed.

Other than that, dosers, auto feeders and WiFi strips take care of the rest and I can remote monitor my strips using Alexa and Kasa.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I will keep those in mind! We have blink cameras and they work well for watching our cats, but not so much our tank.

Wyze very popular amongst reefers

 

[exnisstech]

Wyze very popular amongst reefers

The eufy cams are a nice alternative. The video quality on them is better than my wyze cams of similar price.

 

[mmorrison55]

Being in Florida, my biggest fear is an extended power outage.

Since I started my tank this year, I have not taken an extended vacation, so not sure what I will do. Im guessing one of my LFS that does maintenance,i will pay their high fees to do a “service” call while im out.

I hope to be able to talk one of the guys who work there to do it themselves at a hopefully much reduced rate.

 

[Reign1]

It worries me every time too. I always feel like something terrible is going to happen every time i go out of town

I think if I was in country it would not be as bad to get back home withing a half day but overseas it is a minnimum 24hours of travel just to get back. I kinda have to tune it out and not think about it. I decided not to go this year so i dont have to worry about it. I am not telling my wife that though lol.