Going on Vacation is so stressful

[whatcaneyedo]

Even when nothing goes wrong things still go wrong. I've left the care of my tank in the hands of my girlfriend and another friend while I've been out of town for a week. Immediately I start receiving messages from the Apex stating that the pH in the calcium reactor is too high a day after I've left. Not a big deal, I just text the caretakers to ask them to turn up the CO2 slightly the next time they feed the fish. So then the girlfriend turns it up too high, so high in fact that its dumping CO2 in to the point where the pH now drops too low before the solenoid can shut off the flow. Well this is annoying because I'm getting messages again from the Apex stating whats happening. But no big deal, this time I ask the tank sitter to turn it down slightly.

Heres the part which is now keeping me up at night. He texts me back to say that he's made the executive decision to swap out the CO2 cylinder (which still has enough gas for probably a few months). I tell him please don't, just try to get the bubble count close to 1 bubble every 2 seconds, the pH controller and solenoid will do the rest. Too late, hes already pulling things apart, flooded the CO2 regulator with saltwater and now something is leaking... AHHHH! Now I'm completely stressed out because I don't know WTF is happening at that end.

Several years ago when I first began to use the Ca Reactor I had a problem like this when I went out of town for a week. A different friend was looking after things and accidentally turned up the CO2 regulator and emptied the entire 20lbs cylinder into the tank/basement. Since then I've made a lot of changes and added several safeguards so that that wouldn't happen again. All a person needs to do these days is occasionally (once a month maybe) turn the CO2 up slightly... I need to get home.