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Unsupervised Aquaria--Instructions to give when you leave town?

bondolo

bondolo

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I have to travel for business next week for about 10 days. I haven't been away from my tanks for more than a day or two since I set them up last July. My wife is going to be "taking care" of the tanks while I am gone but I won't be asking her to handle any water changes, testing, glass cleaning, spot feeding or other fishy duties. There are a couple of things I am going to ask her to do though, mostly feeding.

What instructions do you normally give to whoever takes care of your tanks when you go away?

My current plan:
- I will have her put in dry Spectrum for the fish every morning and evening.
- I plan to pre-mix up a large squirt bottle of the Reef Nutrition/Reef Chili blend I am feeding to keep in the fridge. She will add a couple of tablespoons worth every second day to both tanks. Are there any problems with pre-mixing food for more than a day or two? Can the corals safely tolerate underfeeding or no feeding for a ten day period?
- I currently target feed my two GBTA and Duncan's twice a week. Other than have her dump in a cube of Misis along with the coral food and hope that the anemones randomly catch some of it I can't think of a way to keep them fed.
- I don't yet have an ATO. I currently add water manually to the sump nearly every day. I will have her do the same whenever it gets down more than an inch or two below the rim.
- I am expecting in advance that I will need to do a major water change and lots of cleaning when I get home.
- Is it worth making arrangements in advance with a fish service for "emergencies" (everything from dead lights to sump overflow) that might come up?
- Is there anything else I can do in advance to make things easier or more maintenance free?

Suggestions welcome!
 
Suggestions:

1) Write it all down and walk her through it once, making HER do it from instructions, not you.
Misunderstandings often cause the worst problems, and happen a lot.

2) Test it yourself first for a week.
Follow your own instructions to the letter, doing nothing else.
This will answer questions on what works/does not, and will
show you what you forgot, and what happens.

3) Generally agree on FISH that skipping the fancy food and reduced feeding is good.
However, be a bit careful. When some semi-reef-safe fish get hungry, they may munch on corals.
A good reason to test it first yourself, to keep watch.
I don't know the answer for corals.

4) Opinion : Tell them "If in doubt, DO NOTHING"
(Depends on how knowledgeable they are)
Unless you know what you are doing, it is so easy to make a minor problem much worse.
 
Wasn't there a list of people to help with this kind of situation? At the very least have a local club member's phone number on hand for if something goes wrong.
 
Having taken several trips with a once-a-day visit from the pet sitter to tide the tank over, there's never been a problem. However, I suggest that you KEEP IT SIMPLE!

Typical photosynthetic corals and anemones won't even BLINK at 10 days without special feedings, so don't bother with it. Take care of any special maintenance (water changes, extra coral feedings, filling up RO resevoir, cleaning out filters, etc) before and after your trip. Put your lights/heaters/etc on timers or a controller.

Make sure your wife knows what the tank is SUPPOSED to look like - clear water, corals in their places, etc. Give her the phone number of a reefer friend or a club member that she can call if anything seems out of place.

Draw a line on the sump showing where it should be topped off to. Have her feed and top off and clean the skimmer cup (assuming it's too small for 10 days of skimmate) daily so there's no confusion or getting tripped up with every-other-day/every-third-day type of schedules. If you have automated ca/alk dosing, food and top-offs are all the maintenance that most tanks need for up to ~2week stretches.
 
I agree with all of the above.

Keep it simple - feeding dry food or frozen food is fine along with top-off should be fine. Anything else is makes it more complicated for the temporary tank caretaker.

Feeding a little less is better than feeding too much.
 
+1 to Keeping it simple.

When I go, I just have extremely simple instructions along with backup contact info to a "pro" in-case I can't be reached.
For food, I don't even leave it to chance. I have it all pre-measured out.

Instructions are basically
1) don't touch any equipment. Almost everything is automated.
2) if something sounds or looks funny, call me or ____
3) dump ONE serving of food into tank per day (there are X individual servings)
4) pull up a chair and enjoy
 
don't premix your feeds. However, do make pre-bagged daily portions for each tank of the pellets for her :D K.I.S.S.

Like Patchin said, put the call out and I bet one of us lives near by and would be willing to give you our number for a just in case emergency. I know my number is on a half dozen tanks. I've seen people write the numbers of other members with a sharpy on glass tanks :lol:

Don't worry about feeding the corals. They will receive food one way or another ;) (nutrients, light, zooplankton, pellet desbris, etc)
 
Like what has been mentioned - Don't worry about feeding the corals.. For fish - pre measure how much you want fed. I think I dumped the amounts into the little plastic cups for frags.. This way your helper doesn't get caught up in: "Look how cute they are when they eat" or.. "They look hungry".. My instructions literally read: "feed with container 1 on monday" etc.

I'd probably try to set up the ATO as well... However make sure you leave enough time for it to be tested... I set mine up in the early morning before a week long trip and just had to hope for the best... (successful) :)
 
yup, stupid is is stupid does... so keep things stupid simple, and stupid simple will get done.

For my trips my brother in law was house sitting, and I had little cups with my pinch worth of food, told him to put one of those cups in once a day and that's it.

My Hawaii trip 10 days... my father was taking care of my tanks... had a drawn out list... how much to top off freshwater... one tank barely got touched, the other tank it all got touched, and one water top off got spilled all over the place came home to that expensive electrical smell.. lucky the house didn't burn down.
 
iCon said:
Like what has been mentioned - Don't worry about feeding the corals.. For fish - pre measure how much you want fed. I think I dumped the amounts into the little plastic cups for frags.. This way your helper doesn't get caught up in: "Look how cute they are when they eat" or.. "They look hungry".. My instructions literally read: "feed with container 1 on monday" etc.

I'd probably try to set up the ATO as well... However make sure you leave enough time for it to be tested... I set mine up in the early morning before a week long trip and just had to hope for the best... (successful) :)
Click to expand...

The worst thing you can do is set up something new and then leave. If you do set up an ATO, make sure you have it running for a couple weeks before you leave. if not, you can count on Murphy visiting your house and having his way with things....
 
What I've found works well for everyone's stress level and anxiety is to have the fish/coral sitter come by for a feeding or a simple maintenance check (whatever they're doing in your absence) to watch you. Then have them come by one more time to actually perform those duties with you present so that when you're gone they're essentially doing something they've seen done and done themselves under supervision.

Combined with a brief checklist to summarize, a warning not to touch anything they haven't touched, and an emergency contact, it's pretty surefire.
 
GreshamH said:
iCon said:
Like what has been mentioned - Don't worry about feeding the corals.. For fish - pre measure how much you want fed. I think I dumped the amounts into the little plastic cups for frags.. This way your helper doesn't get caught up in: "Look how cute they are when they eat" or.. "They look hungry".. My instructions literally read: "feed with container 1 on monday" etc.

I'd probably try to set up the ATO as well... However make sure you leave enough time for it to be tested... I set mine up in the early morning before a week long trip and just had to hope for the best... (successful) :)
Click to expand...

The worst thing you can do is set up something new and then leave. If you do set up an ATO, make sure you have it running for a couple weeks before you leave. if not, you can count on Murphy visiting your house and having his way with things....
Click to expand...
+10000000 Don't make me prove that Murphy is a total ahole.
 
GreshamH said:
iCon said:
Like what has been mentioned - Don't worry about feeding the corals.. For fish - pre measure how much you want fed. I think I dumped the amounts into the little plastic cups for frags.. This way your helper doesn't get caught up in: "Look how cute they are when they eat" or.. "They look hungry".. My instructions literally read: "feed with container 1 on monday" etc.

I'd probably try to set up the ATO as well... However make sure you leave enough time for it to be tested... I set mine up in the early morning before a week long trip and just had to hope for the best... (successful) :)
Click to expand...

The worst thing you can do is set up something new and then leave. If you do set up an ATO, make sure you have it running for a couple weeks before you leave. if not, you can count on Murphy visiting your house and having his way with things....
Click to expand...



Agree - But you don't think a week is enough time??? Get the thing going today and you have a week to make sure it works. There are also ways to minimize your risk like only keeping the reservoir as full as your sump/system can hold. All I said was that I set up the ATO the night before I left..Definitely didn't recommend doing this :D
 
I won't be able to set up the ATO before I go. I need to buy an RO/DI unit, auto-shutoff and ATO (another $400 worth of gear--"Hey, we can get a drinking water reservoir for us to drink, that's a benefit, right?" Yay! :) ) install it all and do the waterline plumbing into the room. I had planned to do that after March or April after doing some other plumbing upgrades on my tank.

Yes, I'm currently topping off with Amquel treated tap water.... I've also done most of my water changes with tap water. Probably somewhat risky. Luckily Berkeley water is pretty good in the winter, low TDS and phosphates. I'm told it's dirtier and a lot higher in phosphates in the summer months. When I originally filled my first tank I ran 55G through a Brita pitcher. (only took 2 days...) I've been tempted to do that for top off water and water changes as well but not sure if it's worth the trouble.
 
I usually make a batch of salt water. That way, it's ready to go when I get back or if an emergency water change is needed.
 
When I was gone for 2 weeks, I did a water change the day before I left, change my media(carbon and gfo), refilled my 2 part, and instructed my cousin to just feed the fish once a day with pellets, which I put in medicine pill boxes(2 of them) which covers the whole 14 days. I lost just my one clam for some reason but it could be worse.
 
Daily pill boxes with just a touch of food are the best. 2 wks for me as well.

If she deals with topping off each day then it will be easier for her (less volume, less carrying).

What happens for me is when I come back I realize my tank didn't miss me one bit.
 
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