How long could you leave your tank alone?

sen5241b

Reef enthusiast
I travel a lot and I am interested to know what other people do who have to leave town. Assuming I did water chanages, my chems were just right, I had someone to properly feed my talk and replenish the ATO's water reservoir, I think I could leave my tank alone for a week.
 
I recommend a full tank failure right before you leave for your time away. :mrgreen:That has worked the last two years for me. The in 2009 I had a complete melt down from a stuck tank heater, and this year I had the tank drain. :shock:

But seriously, I think you can leave your tank for 1-2 weeks without a problem, baring any equipment failures.
 
A week is prolly safe if your tank is well established...

2 weeks did mine in with only my gf tending it over the summer :( Was only a few months old then tho..

Its kind of a Jeopardy deal tho

Don't change anything on your tank b4 the trip! XD
 
A week is prolly safe if your tank is well established...

2 weeks did mine in with only my gf tending it over the summer :( Was only a few months old then tho..

Its kind of a Jeopardy deal tho

Don't change anything on your tank b4 the trip! XD

YES. Never do any last minute tinkering with your tank right before you leave. Let it run by itself the last couple days before you leave as a test.
 
I think I could leave mine for a maximum of 3 or 4 days unattended. I don't have an ATO. If I had someone coming over to feed and top off, then it'd probably be okay for a few weeks.
 
i left mine for 5 days noone looking after it at all , when i came back hair algae on most rocks about 3 inches long and around 4 gallons of water less in my tank :( .
 
I could leave my tank for probably two-three weeks. But I also have a very competent house/pet/tank sitter in the form of my younger brother.
 
I have left my tank 8 days about 3 years ago,had no auto top off(still don't),came home to about an inch and a half lower water level(75)......don't think i could go longer than 2-3 days max now.....pretty sure the triggs would get pretty testy after 3 days of no feeding
 
Would feeding every other day be fine or just getting an autofeeder? I'll be going overseas this Christmas for 2 weeks, so I'm glad I found this thread. I would hate to give a 2 minute drill for my petsitter on how tank-care and then having them brick my tank.
 
Feeding every other day would be fine. I personally wouldn't trust an auto feeder. I've tried them in the past, and sometimes the food gets stuck in it, and sometimes it dumps the entire contents in the tank at once. The ones I tried weren't very reliable.
 
Would feeding every other day be fine or just getting an autofeeder? I'll be going overseas this Christmas for 2 weeks, so I'm glad I found this thread. I would hate to give a 2 minute drill for my petsitter on how tank-care and then having them brick my tank.

We used to have a 125 cichlid tank. We tried an autofeeder for a little while. It wasn't pretty. Some days it would skip, some days it would dump everything, like Biff said.
 
Wow bad stuff. I'll try putting specific directions on how much to feed. I know they'll end up overfeeding anyways : /

Some of us have done this (I think Wonton had the original idea) but you can buy one of those daily pill containers from the pharmacy, and put the day's food in the compartments so your pet sitter knows exactly how much to use each day.
 
I would look into a RKL with the net option... my tank e-mails me if something is a miss and I can just hop on the phone with the wife and walk her through what ever is wrong. I monitor PH, Salinity, temp along with my ATO... its not 100% but it helps to see looming disasters. Its aslo not a bad idea if it is an option, to have them know how to do everything alone. Heather can run all of the test, and dose (even though she never has had too) cean the skimmer and glass, all of it... In my notebook of records it is ALL spelled out if its off X dose Y and so on.

On the feeding its easier for me anyways to seperate into everyother day cups in the freezer I have a TON of little sald dressing tupperwear containers that will have enough food per container to feed both my tanks for 1 day. So I know exactly how much food they use and doen't over feed. Now if she is with me it doesn't help.

But we have 20+ animals to take care of so our pet sitters are normally other crazy people in the hobby that have some knowldge of what they are doing.
 
I once left town for 2 weeks and I showed my house sitter how to feed and hot to keep the ATO reservoir filled and the tank was just fine.
 
Back
Top