Never Leaving My Tank Again!

[Glenn]

This is becoming VERY irritating! Every time I go out of town for a few days something bad happens. A few weeks back my wife and I went to Texas and Myrtle Beach for a week. When we got back my Lawnmower Blenny was MIA and my Seahoarse had died. This past weekend we went to the mountains of N.C. and shortly after we got back I noticed a few dots on my Clown Trigger (who has been doing great for the 4 months that I had him). To make a long story short I disposed of him today. I tried to fight it but I think it had already gotten to his gills by the time I caught it. This is starting to really annoy me. My main problem is I work hard to maintain this tank only to have it collapse when I'm not around. Anyone want to move to northeast N.C. so that I can have someone that knows SW take care of my tank while I am gone? Thanks for listening, I just needed to vent a little.

[flaunt]

whoa sorry to hear about that dude... i'd be irritated too if every weekend i wasn't around something bad happened to my aquarium. i guess i've been pretty fortunate as i'm often not at home on the weekends to watch over my aquarium and so far no disasters have occurred (knock on wood). has there ever been a faulty device associated with the occurrences in your aquarium? it doesn't make sense that something would happen unless a device failed (heater, skimmer) and suddently caused a change in the environment. do you topoff your tank every day? perhaps you had signficant evaporation over the weekend which stressed your clown and made him sick. i don't know though as i'm not sure how quick changes in salinty affect fish. you could try leaving ur tank alone for a few days (as much as you want to mess with it) and just observe what happens without your intervention. of course, don't purposely let a tragedy occur, just look for signs of stress on your animals.

 

just some thoughts.

[Glenn]

I'm not exactly sure what is going on. My tank evaporates very slowly (I can usually go a week or more w/o having to add any topoff water to maintain salinity). All my equipment is in perfect working order (I clean and monitor it regularly). I even premeasure the food for whoever is feeding them while I'm gone, heck I even have one of those pill containers w/ the days of the week and time of day (morning, afternoon, night) that I use for flake food while I'm gone so I don't have to worry about someone dumping half the can in my tank. Thanks Flaunt for the ideas .

[Pikelet]

I think I've been very lucky over my two seperate trips away from my tanks - 1 week each time. No losses whatsover. I use a cheap autofeeder and auto topoff and disconnect the sump and overflow system relying only on the powerheads in the main tank for circulation.

 

I did note, however, that I had an increase in green algae resulting from the use of Formula 1 in an autofeeder. Do you normally feed flake only on that schedule? The change of diet could cause some stress.

 

You might also have simply had a run of bad luck. Stuff happens.

[JIM27]

I have the same problem with my nano. We went on vacation for a week last summer and when I got back my two frogspawns were dead because the tank got up to 90+ degrees and a few days later my clam died too. My shark tank always makes it out fine though. That tank is the easiest to maintain(unlike my nano).