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Longest Vacation / auto feed etc..?

capescuba

capescuba

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What is the longest folks on here have left their tanks in auto feed / top off etc. mode? Are we all limited to 7 day max vacations once in this hobby or do folks do longer?
 
capescuba said:
What is the longest folks on here have left their tanks in auto feed / top off etc. mode? Are we all limited to 7 day max vacations once in this hobby or do folks do longer?
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I suggest if you're doing longer you do two things. One, arrange for someone to come in and check. Refill top-off, etc. Lot's of LFS's in the area will do this relatively cheaply or sometimes if you're really nice and bake cookies before you leave someone in the club will volunteer. Second, get a decent digital camera that you can set up and stream video to your phone so you can keep an eye on it and panic if necessary.
 
Bruce Spiegelman said:
I suggest if you're doing longer you do two things. One, arrange for someone to come in and check. Refill top-off, etc. Lot's of LFS's in the area will do this relatively cheaply or sometimes if you're really nice and bake cookies before you leave someone in the club will volunteer. Second, get a decent digital camera that you can set up and stream video to your phone so you can keep an eye on it and panic if necessary.
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What kind of cookies are we looking at here?? ;)
 
capescuba said:
38 days! How much food / top off did that need!
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I don’t know how much water used, but my system was a 90+40b+30 sump. My top off water comes directly from a 40g rodi bucket
With float shutoff.

I basically filled up both auto feeder and feed little ( 2 times a day), when I came back, I had about 1/3 left for both tank

I also did have a webcam pointing at my tanks, but decided not to monitoring it, and turned it off. I had to leave the country for a stressful matter, and my tanks aren not going to contribute more stress.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
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Auto top off should not be a limiting issue, even if nobody is coming around. Just temporarily use a large container (like a brute) as your reservoir and put your ato pump in it. Should last for weeks and weeks (unless you have a massive tank).


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My ATO Reservoir is fed by my RO/DI directly. I used to manually open the valve up to fill it, but I've also put in high/low optical sensors and a solenoid to do the work for me when I'm not home. I've been testing it and I haven't had to manually fill up my reservoir in months now. It also has a mechanical float valve in it too just in case a sensor fails. The RO/DI has an automatic shutoff valve... hopefully that doesn't fail. But that could solve not having a huge reservoir available.

But definitely get someone experienced to check your tank often.
 
I commonly go 14 days, no issues.

Two auto-feeders(one a dual eheim), everything else automatic, extra reservoir for skimmer.
ATO is 30G, water exchange is 100G, dosers are 2G each, so no issues there.

The main limit for me would be gunk on the skimmer wall getting to thick. Swabbie might fix that.
 
kinetic said:
My ATO Reservoir is fed by my RO/DI directly. I used to manually open the valve up to fill it, but I've also put in high/low optical sensors and a solenoid to do the work for me when I'm not home. I've been testing it and I haven't had to manually fill up my reservoir in months now. It also has a mechanical float valve in it too just in case a sensor fails. The RO/DI has an automatic shutoff valve... hopefully that doesn't fail. But that could solve not having a huge reservoir available.

But definitely get someone experienced to check your tank often.
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I was thinking of using the Tunze RO water controller for this. Is this what you are using or DIY or something else?
 
JVU said:
I was thinking of using the Tunze RO water controller for this. Is this what you are using or DIY or something else?
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I use the Neptune ATK from reservoir into the sump, and Neptune FMM, Solenoid, OS-1M (x2), + emergency regular float valve from the RO/DI to the reservoir.
 
Neptune FMM + OS1M +OS1M + SV1 solenoid is almost exactly the same price as the Tunze RO water controller. Did you consider the Tunze or just stick with Apex-controlled?

I’m trying to decide between them. What I like about Tunze is a better build quality reputation and longer product track record. What I like about the Neptune solution is the magnet mounts for the sensors. I’m not sure how I feel about the Apex integration. I’m not sure it adds much convenience value but I’ve had my Apex fail in strange ways a couple times so I’m not crazy about relying entirely on it. I of course would also have a float valve as the last defense on the RODI line like you.
 
JVU said:
Neptune FMM + OS1M +OS1M + SV1 solenoid is almost exactly the same price as the Tunze RO water controller. Did you consider the Tunze or just stick with Apex-controlled?

I’m trying to decide between them. What I like about Tunze is a better build quality reputation and longer product track record. What I like about the Neptune solution is the magnet mounts for the sensors. I’m not sure how I feel about the Apex integration. I’m not sure it adds much convenience value but I’ve had my Apex fail in strange ways a couple times so I’m not crazy about relying entirely on it. I of course would also have a float valve as the last defense on the RODI line like you.
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Oh I forgot, you also need a power supply to power the SV1 through the FMM. So it could be even more expensive?

I just went with Neptune since I have a bunch of neptune things already. It's nice because it will log everything as well, so I'll also know if something weird is happening if the logs show the solenoid opening up way too often (though that shouldn't happen since the ATK has a lot of that built in as well). I also bought it all during the whole Black Friday sales, so it was fairly cheap at the time. No issues for me so far (knock on wood), though I did have an OS-1 that came DOA, but was quickly replaced.
 
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