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5 days vacation with no tank sitter. How to prep tank?


ninjamyst

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My wife and I will be gone for 5 days for Thanksgiving. What's the best way to prepare my two tanks (5g and 12g) for 5 days without maintenance? I won't be able to get anyone to tank sit for me.

 

My biggest concern are evaporation and feeding the fish. I have the Tunze Nano ATO for the 12g but I dont trust it. It has gone berserk on me 5+ times already and dumped all the reservoir water into the tank. Should I cover as much I can with saran wrap? Will fish be ok for 5 days without food??

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My wife and I will be gone for 5 days for Thanksgiving. What's the best way to prepare my two tanks (5g and 12g) for 5 days without maintenance? I won't be able to get anyone to tank sit for me.

 

My biggest concern are evaporation and feeding the fish. I have the Tunze Nano ATO for the 12g but I dont trust it. It has gone berserk on me 5+ times already and dumped all the reservoir water into the tank. Should I cover as much I can with saran wrap? Will fish be ok for 5 days without food??

What would I do.....

 

I'd probably drop the salinity down to 1.023-1.024 on the tanks and cover them with saran wrap, but not all the way...leave some air opening at a corner. I'd feed them normal the day I leave. Some people never feed their fish and they do fine. I wouldn't worry about food for just 5 days.

 

Don't do any major maintenance the day before or a couple of days before you leave, like cleaning equipment etc. You don't want equipment failure....Murphy's Law :). If I think of anything else, I'll let you know :).

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aquariumlover10

Top fin autofeeder is pretty realiable, and if you get a hamster(biggest possible) watering botyles and put some air line tubing on end and fill with normal top off wate and hang on wall by tankwith airline tip where water needs to be it should work,and if no autofeeder try and overfeed alittle before so they have alittle resorves.

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You don't want to Saran Wrap the tank bc you will not get the oxygen exchange that the tank needs.

 

The fish will be fine without food. When I leave for several days, I feed the fish right before I walk out and they get fed as soon as I get home.

 

As far as evaporation, you can use a reservoir that even if emptied will not overflow the tank. Maybe lower the water level(and the sensor) to gain some extra space. I have purposefully added extra top off water to my tank in the days prior to leaving and slowly dropped the SG. That water evaps first and then the ATO kicks in. I can get about 2 days of water in my system. If you have sensitive corals I do not recommend this approach though. My tank is ~40 gallons and a 1/2 gallon of rodi water doesn't make much difference in SG

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Get a cheap timer to set the ato on to come on and off every hour. It will reset it it each time and keep it from acting up. I did that with my jbj ato and it has worked flawlessly. Shorten up you're lighting periods to reduce heat. Larger than usual water change before leaving, and pray to fish gods.

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I left for 14 days on a cruise, and has no sitter for my old 10g.

I had the ELOS Osmocontroller Digital, which never failed me. I just bought a larger container (~12g) for the top-off water.

I fed my fish like pigs the 3 days prior to my leave, and did a large 50% water change the day before I left. Everyone lived, and water salinity stayed on point. Just came back to a nice coating of algae :lol: Maybe I was lucky, but I think some people fuss far too much when leaving. Of course depending on your fish an auto feeder may be a good idea.

 

Maybe look into a different ago, BUT buying something new at this point may be a bit of a gamble in itself.

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My wife and I will be gone for 5 days for Thanksgiving. What's the best way to prepare my two tanks (5g and 12g) for 5 days without maintenance? I won't be able to get anyone to tank sit for me.

 

My biggest concern are evaporation and feeding the fish. I have the Tunze Nano ATO for the 12g but I dont trust it. It has gone berserk on me 5+ times already and dumped all the reservoir water into the tank. Should I cover as much I can with saran wrap? Will fish be ok for 5 days without food??

I went to San Fran for week and came back without any issue. ATO is my own DIY so I can't speak for that, it has not fail me yet though. I covered the tank with a piece of plexiglass to minimize evap and the 1 gallon jug was not even empty when I get back. Additionally, I turned all power head downward a bit to minimize surface movement which reduce evap. As for feeding the fishes, I use Eheim automatic fish feeder set to rotate once daily in the evening.

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What you don't ever use a cow trouf ting? Get with the times man they are awesome. Heck yeah hook that water hose, who doesn't want to flood their house.

My cow trouf ting is the best. I never go on vacation without it. I do need a new window water hose though.

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I won't be able to completely saran wrap everything since the back has a skimmer that sticks out and part of it can't be covered. I guess I will just saran wrap as much as I can. I like the idea of dialing salinity down to 1.023ish and fill up tank with extra water. I think that should cover the evaporation part. I will also shorten the light cycle since that should help with algae control too. I turkey baster both tanks daily so I am sure without that for 5 days, I will come back to tons of algae. I want to feed the fish a big meal before I leave but that will just make algae worst...bummer. I guess I can feed them a lot the night before, then do a 30% water change.

 

Thanks for all the great ideas! I dont have much luck with vacations. My tanks mini crashed before when I went on a trip. Now I have a 5 days trip to Florida for Thanksgiving (14 hours drive....sigh), followed by 5 days cruise in December. Got to burn those PTO days before year end...

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5 days? I wouldn't stress about it. Just do what you normally do. Make sure your sensor in your reservoir is working fine so it'll shut off if it hits that level. The more you overthink it and buy new equipment this and that, the more liability that your tank will fck up.

 

Just do your W/C the day before, reservoir filled. Feed everyone in the tank, make sure your ATO, lights, timers, etc are all working fine.

 

I have never had an issue with my jbj ATO, maybe that wouldn't be a bad investment.

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Good luck! I left my tank for 7 days last summer with no problems, but I did have an ATO. In fact the corals looked better than they did when I left, and the fish was fine.

 

I have the same ATO you do and I had a lot of problems with small snails getting inside the sensor, which forced the ATO to pump until the timer finally turned it off. In a pico tank that meant water overflowing all over the place. I switched to a Hydor Smart Level ATO and haven't had any problems since.

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aquariumlover10

They have to have a water hose hokked in not just sitting in a bucket of water, and stop bashing, I have autism, and I'm a kid, trust me I get enough of it in my everyday life.

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