Who takes care of your tank When your out of town?
 

Just wondering what everyone does when the go on holidays or have to go out of town for a week or 2 at a time? Do you hire another reefer?
Maintenance company? Or have your tank so automated it can run itself for more than a week?

Reason i'm asking is i have to go away for 2 weeks over Christmas and have to find a way or someone to look after my tank.
Just moved to the city in august so i don't know anyone well enough to ask the favor.

This would be the only reason i would ever get out of the hobby as i wouldn't want to restrict my traveling due to maintaining a tank.

Thanks in advance.

Derek

If I go without my wife, she tends the tanks. If she is with me, my nephew watches the tanks; and a local reefer friend of mine is kind enough to be on emergency call.

Well when I was over in Afghnistan for 7 months Doug came over to check out my tank, Thansk again Doug, Tammy will dump the skimmer for me when Im gone for any periods. I had the in -laws on a couple of occasions check the tank awhile back,but now Tammy or Doug will do it...

I have a friend come over to take care of the tank. Usually if its only a couple of days I don't worry about it. More than 3 days I have her come over whichever day she likes to feed the tank. She's well versed in my tank "quirks" as we were roommates for 6 years and knows of my suffering :wink: At Christmas, I have someone else that stays in town, that has strict feeding instructions every few days or so and I have my aquatronica take care of everything else (well at least I can "check in" on things while I'm gone and send in the troops if there are issues).

This may be a good time to make a new friend, get yourself involved in the Reef Network. Perhaps you'll find someone close by that can help you out. As an alternative, I do believe there are some companies that you can hire to do "tank maintenance/sitting" while you're away, I'm not sure of which ones in Vancouver though.

therealbigal is my goto tank guy.
I usually have my tennant look after the feeding but have him call al if anything "fishy" comes up.

Saved my floor when I was at my sisters wedding in Sept. and my overflow got a big bubble in the utube and lost siphon....2 minutes before the ceremony where I was the groomsman.

Funnily enough, al was just on his way back from the reef network swap meet and in the neighborhood, lucky for me.

We have had dogs for years and never liked to kennel them so now when my sis comes to watch the dogs she watches the fish as well, If she doesn't my wifes sis does, or one of my brothers, etc.

Just make a friend! And have an emergency number to call if thiings go squirly (Friend (Fellow reefer), LFS that will help, etc.)....

Shouldn't be too hard to do.....

TJ

lorenZo aka Roommate.

Sister's husband comes by every few days to do a good feeding and water top up. I do a couple of good water changes right before I leave, so the tank is in good condition water wise for atleast a few weeks. When I get back i do another water change the next day.

My two teenage boys......:wink:

I threaten them before I leave...:lol:

They are actually pretty good, I have never had any issues. With my freshwater tank, I put the dry food into containers measured out and all they have to do is open lid and dump they never over feed that way. For the frozen foods I have it all measured out so they just feed as I say with that.

When I had my 10 gal nano the biggest thing was top ups, they were really good with both that and feeding was done the same as the freshwater.

Now I have a 1 gal pico so the top ups are more frequent and we just went away on a cruise for a week and everything was perfect when we came home. We will be going on a 14 day Hawaiian cruise next and they will do the same.

I don't get them to do water changes, would never do that. I just cut back on the amount of food while I am away.

I trained them early in life.....:biggrin:

Good luck
Amy

My tank is automated except feeding so a friend comes by every 2 or 3 days. top up water reservoir needs to be filled once a week if i am gone longer then that. other then that everything is done.

Jason

Well, it looks like everyone relys on a friend or family to do the dirty work when they're away.
It's looking like i might have to enlist one of my friends (all of which don't know a thing about maintaining a fish tank, let alone a reef tank.)
Looks like the training/recruiting is going to have to start ASAP so I'm ready for December.

Thanks for all your reply's. It would be pretty cool to see if someone has a completely self-sufficient tank with the exception of cleaning the glass (maybe someone did a DIY for that too)

with my tank all i have to do is clean the glass for now until the trace element gods take over. that should be in about 2 months:cry:

Reef network. :smile: Doug & Mike. :rofl:

We just cant go away at the same time. :lol:

My oldest always watched mine in Thompson, many moons ago. When I first moved here and lived in the country, I was pretty much {fill in the blank}.

Same as others, if I leave alone, my wife looks after it or my daughter. Or my other friend Mike, but he lives 20m out of town. But Mikey is back home, so ok now. :smile:

And I,m in the process of making my 90g easy to maintain.

Just me gone the wife looks after the tank, both of, us her cousin stays over.

With a ATO and Ca reactor, it's really only to feed daily (though sure the tank could go longer) and empty out the skimmer cup every few days.

To prepare, I have a spare heater and power head available. The heater is to go into the tank if I was to loose the basement return pump (have CL for aeration) power head is for aeration if loose both the return and CL pumps. Gone over the generator with both the wife and the cousin but imagine I'll be getting a call then.

Good question. I'm gone for 9 days next month and haven't found a sitter...all I need it top off topped off, and feed every few days

haha my grandpa usually comes over and does a pretty awesome job :) he likes the fish so i just get him to do it

i havent gone away yet, but if i did i would trust raf to watch after my tank

I just don't go out of town, but thats ok i'm pretty much a hermit anyway

If my boyfriend (saltaddict) and I are both gone we have his dad look after the tank and we have fellow canreef friends who he can call upon in an emergency situation.

My amazing father-in-law followed all of my (several pages) anal-retentive notes to a "T" on all of the tanks when we were gone 11 days in August and aside from cyano it was fine. I even put all of the frozen foods into 7-day pill boxes portioned for each day, dry as well, drew lines on the tanks where to top off to each day and labled Everything involving the tank with a black marker lol

I have a friend (who is also a fellow reefer) look after mine. It works pretty well as I also look after his while he is gone... he's got over 600 gallons of water though, compared to my 25. I look at it as a test run for when I am able to expand. :D

Met my friend Harvey at a LFS & it turns out he lives a block away & walked his dog by my house daily. He got big time into salt & now, if I go away, he watches my tanks & if he goes away with his whole family, I'll do the same for him. Works great & within walking distance too. Now I can vacation stress free, although I always seem to end up in Powell River on my vacations.:biggrin:

Anthony

My neigbour aross the street looks after my and my wifes tanks. We put food in plastic shoot glass with the days of the week on them. I do a water change just before we leave, and top up the auto top up.

Last summer we went to Hawii for two weeks for are honeymoon. I topped up the 15 gollan auto top up tank and added 3 gollons of exter water to the sump. But when we come back the 15 gallon was empty and the sump was about 2 gallon low. Good thing I had some water made up before we left.

My neigbours doughter boyfriend dose tank matiance, I will try and get his number for you.

That would be great, I have a feeling that my friends here wouldn't do a very good job, perhaps even forget about it for a week. With the fans and MH im getting alot of evap. so it requires a little more maintenance than my previous setup.

I've found, if I overfill my sump (or display for the 10g; no sump) I can safely manage 11 days without attention... The foxface gets awful hungry and the 65g gets VERY clean by the time I return, the clown in the 10g seems to do ok (doesn't look emaciated or anything, maybe he's going after pods?)

However by that 11th day, the skimmer on the 10g has or is about to loose its prime (Rio nano), and the return pump is starting to suck air on the 65. Likely for next year - I'll be looking at putting some decent sized ATO's on; and pick up a couple of those automated fish feeders (feed a bit every 2nd day or something just as insurance).

While it's nice to have someone in to take care of the fish, I'm usually happier knowing things are redundant enough not to require it...

Hi!

Raf and I run an aquarium maintenance company and we often do tank feeding/sitting. Let us know if you are interested! We actually are postponing our holidays this winter because we are babysitting some aquariums. hehe (thats dedication!)

Check our website: http://www.aquaticescapes.ca

:)
-Diana & Raf

shameless......lol