Reef nutrition

How do you manage vacation?

Alexander1312

Alexander1312

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We have had our 26G nano only since the end of August 2022 and have not gone on vacation since then. However, we plan to go on two one-week trips and potentially one two-week trip this year.

Although this is only a small tank, we have put much effort into getting it where it is and would not like to see these efforts eliminated while we are gone.

I assume one-week trips can be managed with auto feeders (we typically only feed frozen food), but I am unsure about the two-week trip.

While we dose various things (Kalkwasser, Bacteria, Iodine, Magnesium, AF Life Source, Phyto), some are mainly due to a current Dino battle we almost won. Therefore, I think only the Kalkwasser will need to remain, which is automated. I also see the temperature and PH online (Neptune), and we have two webcams (night vision) installed.

All the water tests and water changes can wait until we are back, as we have been moving to a 20-25% water change every two weeks from a 10-15% weekly water change recently.

In summary, I would be interested in how you manage your absences in detail, what are the things you ask someone to look after (and what not), what is the prep work you do for this, or does it mean going into the hobby means giving up on leaving your home for extended periods?
 
Well coming off a two week vacation-the big thing for us is the ATO. So we had someone come in once a week to refill the resevoir and do some other minor stuff around the tank.

Fortunately we had a dog sitter since the FMM kept going amok. Also another problem with the trident dealt with by a neighbor.

Otherwise everything else automated- feeding. Dosing. And that worked fine.

Hence automate as much as possible -but recommend someone coming in to check on tank-especially for the two week vacation.

But having the Neptune in place helped immensely in becoming aware of issues.
 
Don't change any routines within a week of leaving. So many reefers seem to tweak right before leaving.

If you have enough time...do a practice vacation a month before....don't touch the tank for a week...or two in your case maybe.

Also, line up an emergency response team....maybe from someone here. We've had a couple of vacationers where hours mattered. If it takes a day to find someone and your tank is cloudy already....

I'm going on vacation this summer and I'm going through the same process.
 
When I had fish :( I had a friend come over to check on them and see if the feeders were full/working.

I also set up a webcam to look at the tank.

Now with no fish, I just fill a 44g Brute with RO/DI water and put my top-off line into that.
I've left the tank for a full month with no problems.

Since my ATO runs through a "kalk reactor", alk and calc are mostly maintained by kalkwasser being used as the top off water, and even if it can't keep up, it drops slowly enough to maybe slow growth, but not kill anything.


If the power goes out though, then things will go bad. I'd have to get someone to come over and make sure the pumps are running and no fuse was blown. When the power goes out and starts up again there is the possibility of a fuse popping due to everything pulling load at once.

V
 
The other points are solid. Big thing imo is get it so it's brain dead simple, and tons of backups in place, including contacts. If someone's going to take care of it, make sure they don't have to think it's all so easy.

If they're going to feed, pre cut or pre portion the food for them.

If they're going to need to top off an ATO, have containers of water sitting right next to the tank for them, and no other similar containers around. Don't make them make water, or try and figure out which is which.

Write RO freshwater and Saltwater in big big letters on pre mixed containers of both, and put a heater in the saltwater.

Make sure they don't need to measure anything, but leave a brain dead measurer around, like a Hanna salinity gauge.

Don't expert your neighbor to know that you add freshwater to a tank, nor how to use a refractometer, not that it's not helpful to toss in extra food because the fish look hungry.

Have backups of all the things, heaters, water. Make sure the heater is set to 78°.

Have remote access to any automation you have. If you have no remote access, go buy at least a smart plug with power measurement so you can make sure it's running.

Label your cords. Put a tag that says HEATER on your heater cord, right by the outlet. Repeat for everything. It'll be helpful for you always, and really helpful when you're on the phone trying to tell someone how to switch a heater out.

Put a webcam on front of your tank, with the ATO visible. I'm not sure if recording is more important or being 4k. I have some nest cams and the recording is great, but they're not really high enough resolution.

Have a plan for when the power goes out again, because it will. It'll go out as soon as you leave, and are on an airplane and can't call for help. That's almost exactly what happened to me. On two different trips...

Two final things. First, pick a day to pretend it's vacation week. On that day, do exactly what you're going to have happen while you're gone. No cleaning the glass, no "let me empty the skimmer", no "let me move the coral that too close to the other one". If you can make it through days of that, then you're fine. If you find you actually have to tune things a lot more than you realized, you're in trouble. No accessing your smart sensors or whatever from your local network. You can only pull up things that are externally accessible, and only make changes that you can do remotely.

Lastly, and apologies for being a pessimist about this, but a tank with a dino problem is not on the smooth sailing during vacation list. I had dinos previously. I thought I mostly had it under control. I had to leave for a family emergency for a week. Came back and it was a dino surge and all my coral were dead. If you're fighting dinos, again do that hands off week. If your tank can't last a week without you dealing with the dinos, then you should contract one of the people in the forum to do maintenance for you when you're gone.

Hopefully that's all helpful. I've been basically burned by everything I listed above, and I've only been back in the hobby for 18mo!

Edit: one other thing which is overkill but I just thought of, buying an ICP test from Triton, where you get the results in a couple days, could be an interesting thing to have on hand. If something weird happens, have them pull water into it, toss it in the mailbox, and see what happens.
 
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All great advices!
We are actually on our 5th day (of almost 2 weeks vacation).
Set up everything 3 weeks before vacation just to make sure everything work. Including shuttling down everything couple times to make sure everything come back properly.
Got the return pump on a 1260wh Ecoflow battery backup just in case.
Huge issue with the skimmer overflow when power came back before so got a skimmer delay and that work out perfectly.
Worse nightmare would a long term power outage. So set up everything for my emergency caretaker just in case.
 
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I just got back from a 8 day trip. Our neighbors kid was feeding the dogs and tank for me. Thankfully, all he had to do was refill the auto top off and feed fish. Some really good advice here already that I wont repeat, but I will say having the Apex was well worth it. It was a pain to set up. I still have a lot to learn about its functionality, but being able to monitor the tank remotely was great. Just had to text the kid when the top off was running low. I did have someone on stand by in case it went to hell.

Gerry
 
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gmdcdvm said:
I just got back from a 8 day trip. Our neighbors kid was feeding the dogs and tank for me. Thankfully, all he had to do was refill the auto top off and feed fish. Some really good advice here already that I wont repeat, but I will say having the Apex was well worth it. It was a pain to set up. I still have a lot to learn about its functionality, but being able to monitor the tank remotely was great. Just had to text the kid when the top off was running low. I did have someone on stand by in case it went to hell.

Gerry
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Same here. We did 7 days away with no one. The ato auto fills and I filled the auto feeder right before leaving. Came home to no casualties but a fair amount of algae on the glass. I had a non reefing neighbor on standby and was monitoring the tank stats on fusion.
 
got back today after two 1/2 weeks. One wrasse gone (was already showing some issues before we left so who knows) . Couple of small sps bleached out, couple coral on the sandbed, lot of algae on glass. On the other hand some real nice growth in some of the other corals! Overall not bad.
 
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