What should I do for short vacations

[jeep and goose]

I’m planning on going on 2 short trips this summer, one is going to be for like 4 days and another one for an unspecified amount of time I doubt it will be much longer, a week tops. Most likely I’ll have 2 reefs to take care of, one fully stocked and one that I’ll have just gotten moved to my place it has a lot of soft coral and some LPs but fish load is light. The other one is somewhat heavily stocked with small gobies and the like and has lots of corslcl although most of its bulletproof stuff. My partner can come for the first trip the second one is with my partner so nothing really can be done about that. Thinking I’ll either ask a friend to come check up on them or buy a doser for my all for reef and an automatic feeder.

 

[JTP424]

A small doser, and ATO, and an automatic feeder and you should be all right.
I would do test runs while you're home.
See if the auto set up works for several days while you're there to observe. It will also allow you to determine how much food/RODI you need for the trip prepared :)

My 15 gallon can go up to two weeks on my automated system.

 

[Jasonak]

Automation is your friend. I mean now you can even have frozen dosed with the AF4.
I have Neptune apex that does all my dosing I have a cheap little battery powered feeder for pellets I also Have a AF4 and we always have someone house sit. I have what I want fed each day divided into Ziploc bags and marked for each tank. I have a camera mounted on the tank cheap wyze one just in case I get a call and they say somethings up with the tank I can look and see if its something I can diagnose. We normally take 2 weeks every year so Ive got pretty good routine lined up.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

IMO any tank should be able to handle a week by itself with an auto feeder. The ATO container is the only limitation that I can think of, as long as the container is large enough then you got no worries.

 

[BryanM]

Auto feeder is your friend. Asking friends to take care of the tank is a non starter for me unless they are also a reefer.

Doser and ATO are just quality of life improvements IMO, and will certainly help for trips.

 

[saltysailorswfl]

I have an AF4 for each of my tanks as well as an auto pellet feeder. I have a 10g ATO on one and a 20g ATO on the other. I have a camera on each tank so I can keep an eye on everything as well. I can go out of town for 10-14 days, depending on evaporation. I auto dose both tanks and I monitor everything on each tank with their own Apex. If there is an emergency, I have two people that know when I'll be gone and they have access to the tanks and knowledge on reef tanks.

 

[christinna77]

Everyone else already mentioned an ATO and auto feeder (I personally prefer Plank), but I'd also add cameras. Every time I go on vacation, I have like five pointed at my tank. Total overkill, but I can see the sump from both angles, the back of the tank with the overflow chamber, the front, the side etc.

A controller like Hydros is probably the best investment though, especially if you want everything in one place and be able to see at a glance that it's all running ok. You can have multiple water level sensors, temp sensors, leak sensors, and see whether the skimmer, return pump or wavemakers stopped running (you can set warnings based on current), etc.