Tank survived a 3 week vacation!

[Vincerama2]

It's the longest I've been gone ... three weeks! I came back and all fish were fine. Whatever hardy coral I had was still hanging in there, despite my mystery tank crappiness that killed off other stuff. Aiptasia was happily multiplying, of course.

Since everything is basically automated the only things that needed extra attention was;

1) Feeding the fish, which if you have no fish is easy! But I used two auto-feeders, and tossing in those "food pyramids" which is a block of calcium-something that slowly dissolves. Not sure what's in the block. I had a friend check to make sure the feeders were full during the weeks, he never topped them off as they were still loaded when he checked.

2) Skimmer - The cup was full, and probably over flowing back into the tank, but the bubbles were working and aerating the tank, so it's all good.

3) Auto-top-off reservoir. In the past, this was the biggest issue I had. I would "preload" the sump by topping it to the top with fresh water, then attach an extra 5 gallon jug to the 10g reservoir via a siphon hose.
However this time, I took my trusty 44G rubbermaid garbage pail (my water change container) and used that. It still had probably 10-15 gallons in it when I returned. This allowed the system to work normally without needing to top off the sump! Awesome!

But I counted fish when I got home and everything was OK! Whew!

V

 

[BSAJim]

Vince,

Congrats on taking three weeks away!

BTW, there are several of us that are willing to check in on a tank every other day or so if we are local.

Jim

 

[roostertech]

Grats!

 

[L/B Block]

Taking notes for our vacation!


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[sfsuphysics]

wow 3 week long vacation? Don't think I've ever taken a vacation that long. Of course my week long vacation to Hawaii with my father looking after my tank with VERY specific instructions... a frigging check list of things to do! He failed on doing it all and nearly burned the house down when he got very sloppy with adding water (in the days before fancy auto top off controllers... or cheap ones)

 

[yellojello]

Nice! I've gone 2 weeks, but never 3!

 

[Vhuang168]

I was gone for about 2 weeks last summer. Not too bad.


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[Vincerama2]

The Spectrapure Ultimate Top Off (or whatever, it uses a litermeter pump) is extremely reliable. Mine's been in use constantly for, I dunno, 10 years or so?

 

[Newjack]

+ 1 in the spectrapure priducts. I've been using an original litermeter gen.1 for almost 20 years as my ATO pump with no issues, still going strong! Not even a cleaning.

 

[tankguy]

Always nice to come home and see the tank still doing well

 

[Flagg37]

+ 1 in the spectrapure priducts. I've been using an original litermeter gen.1 for almost 20 years as my ATO pump with no issues, still going strong! Not even a cleaning.

Anything electronic going for 20 years is amazing let alone a pump that has mechanical parts too.

 

[rygh]

Anything electronic going for 20 years is amazing let alone a pump that has mechanical parts too.

Voyager is still going. 40 years.
It is not hard to design electronics for longevity. Silicon is basically a rock. But why bother. Obsolete so fast.