Vacation advice! Leaving my tanks to my clueless room mate...
 

So I leave for Mexico in two weeks. My room mate knows nothing really about aquariums. Do I write a problem /solution guide? With pictures.
The food is okay since I bought kind of a weekly pill box for each tank.
I also clearly labeled water levels.
This is the first time I'll be away for three weeks.
Any advice would be helpful.

here's what you need to do billy(your name is billy right, well it is now)
first thing you need to do is buy a desert eagle( preferably gold in color)
now prepare a nice diner(you have a girlfriend,get her to cook), now invite your room mate to dinner and have a few laughs and share some stories.
now billy this is where it gets interesting, you tell your girlfriend to leave and then you pull out the desert eagle and put it on the table (if you were wearing shades while having dinner, pull em out in style). now tell your room mate that you are going to paris (whats that you are going to mexico, well you changed your plans).
Billy explain to your room mate that maintaining your tank is a serious buisness. now in style slide him a paper that has all the instructions (make sure they have pictures on them). tell him to follow it down to the last letter. put contact details all of them (mother,father,sister,brother,priest,dog,cow). explain to him in a deep tone that you have a certain set of skills that you are prepared to use on him if he doesent keep your tank in order.
once all this is done get up put your shades on and walk away (it would be preferable to light a smoke at this point for further effect)
alternatively you can just higher a guy for a month to do your tank cleaning, plenty of stores offer a cheap one month deal

Assume your roommate needs things spelled out like a four year old would. Anticipate how things might go wrong and write out solutions... for example what if your skimmer overflows, what should he do? What if the return pump jams, what should he be looking at to make sure things are working. So many of the little "checks" we do in our tanks are so second nature we don't even think to look at them so make sure you write them out in good order.

Have backups that he can easily use, like a backup return pump, backup heater, etc. Have instructions on how to swap them out. Tell him which store has good ro water if your RO unit craps out. Call a friend who is local and knows about the tank, see if that friend would mind being an emergency contact number.

Good luck

Set up an ATO if you don't have one. And get an ice cube tray filled with potioned feedings and water so he just has to throw one in and there's no guess work. don't let him dose anything, and if you can have a fellow can reefer stop by and check on things. Should be no issues I go away for a couple weeks a year and leave a roommate in charge.

I'm not sure adding a potentially disastrous piece of equipment like an ATO just before you leave is a good idea. I would want any auto device running for a few months before I trusted it unattended.

Show the roommate how to log onto here!!!!

I agree. But salinity swings can be one of the worst things for all members of the tank and depending on the tank size it doesn't take long for this to happen. Marking water lines is a safe way to go but this is assuming the friend isn't a sleep over at a girlfriend/boyfriends for a few nights and forgets stuff easily. I think an ato with floats etc. Is pretty tricky but a pressure activated solenoid with a sturdy fastening system is pretty safe. It's a gamble on both sides.

I do it all the time. Just have a 25 gal full of ro water beside the tank and instruct the person to just add water up to the line in the sump ( use black marker to draw line on sump glass). Turn skimmer down a notch ( less chance of overflow) and only feed every other day. Don't add any additives during this time. After 3 weeks, you might come home to a tank that's got a lot of film algae on the glass, but everything else should be ok.

make everything simple. Auto feeder ect. unless your leaving soon and can't test anything for a week at least. contact a fellow reefer friend and ask them to check on it. You can return the favor when they go on holidays.

Just got back from a week vacation and left my tanks to my daughter to look after. I had everything ready for her, left instructions etc. I had enough top off water ready, she just had to fill the top off section of the tank. Had enough food made for the fish, and showed her how to feed. I also showed her how to refill the jugs if she needed more water and explained how it all worked. We were accessible if she had any questions or problems, but before I left, I spoke with Kevin at Red Coral and he gave me a card with his number so if she had any problems, she could call him and he was willing to help out. I taped the card to the tank.

Fortunately, no issues and all fish and corals were happy when we returned. Of course, I bought her some gifts, so a case of beer or something nice from Mexico for the roomate may be in order.

Given you are going away longer, you may want another reefer checking on things for you just to help out.

If it is possible, get someone from your local LFS to check up on it, it will probably cost you a few bucks but at least you will have some peace of mind. :)

Just read coralgurls response... Another reefer would work too

The main problem is that there is a lot more then one tank. Well six tanks and one in the making just waiting on the cycling process.
I have auto top offs, auto feeders, and all that.
It just every time I go on vacation I lose a fish. Last time it was due to the fact they didn't fed the tank after the first day.
I got label food in zip lock bags this time. Marked with day and time.

It won't be so bad if I had Internet access to check up on my tanks.
And problems always happen when the lfs are closed.

Matt, with 6-7 tanks, I think you need a professional to come in. It wouldn't be fair to your roommate to be responsible for that many tanks. Do you have companies in Calgary that do tank maintenance? Probably cost you a couple hundred bucks for that long a duration, but well worth it in my opinion.

Send nate a pm. He has an aquarium maintenance business in calgary.

find a canreefer member that lives near you to look after things, arrange to also help him/her out also. Many of us do this. Or as others stated, pay for a professional service.

I think you should think about the what if scenario... If something happens, like a return pump failure, will a roommate or someone with no reef experience going to know what to do, who to call, without panicking?

3 weeks and 6 tanks? Oh my. No offense IMO I think that is way too long for the tanks to be unattended and in the care of someone who doesn't themselves have some kind of ownership in the tanks. For day to day things like feeding and topup, maybe ... but I think you need someone experienced (and has had a quick overview of the systems beforehand) to check in every couple of days and to handle the bigger items like cleaning skimmers and checking/refilling reservoirs or dosings or whatever it is that the tanks require.

I know that anytime I go away and have family look after the tanks, in the case of when I ask my dad to stop in, he chronically overfeeds everything ("the fish looked hungry") and I get algae blooms or nutrient spikes for weeks thereafter (and/or livestock losses). Another time, a few years back, I lost a beautiful 10 year old purple plate coral because it somehow got buried in sand and the tanksitter that time (sister in law) didn't know it was in trouble. She just didn't know what to look for.

A weekend is one thing, but for myself anything more than that I ask my Canreef buddy to check in. At least then I don't have to worry about proceduralizing every little possibility.

With 6 tanks and 3 weeks .. I honestly think you need someone to come in for you beyond the day to day stuff. Someone on Canreef is bound to be near to you (or try a professional tank service..)

Good luck!! Oh and above all have an awesome vacation man, that sounds epic!

Well I cut my vacation into three parts. Good thing it doesn't cost me much to fly back for a day.

Thank you every one for your input.

You're going to fly back to Calgary for the day? From Mexico? Twice?

It's only like 5+ hours each way. If it keeps me from worrying about my tanks.
I work at the airport to it doesn't cost me anything really. I also enjoy flying.

hey , if you need someone to check in or a back up someone to call in case of problems i can help you out if your interested send me a pm i wont charge you anything but a favor back someday:P

Me to if it helps, no problem at all.