Water evaporation

[Amphiprion]

Usually most LFS provide a service to come care for your tank. If you trust them in your home that is probably the way to go. It's worth the money for you to not worry the entire trip. Trust me.

I wouldn't recommend the 'drip' system. One of two things will happen over that amount of time.

1) You won't set it to drip fast enough, the water will evaporate within a week to the point where your pump is sucking air. Your pump burns out and all your fish die before you get back.

2) You set it to high and you come home to whatever amount of liquid you used as a reservoir all over your floor.

Their is basically no chance of getting it 'just right' over a 3 week period. If you want to try, you need to start it now and adjust it for as long as possible as accurately as possible before you go.

There are safeguards that you could easily implement to overcome most of these. First, get a good idea of the amount of evaporation. Second, get a reasonably sized container, such as 5 gallons or so. You can set the pace initially higher than necessary, since the pressure will reduce with time. It can and does even out and can work well if done properly. I did it many times.

One thing I did overlook, however, was the time frame. I missed the 3 weeks part--I only saw "week," so I assumed that was the maximum amount of time. All this being said, the safest option at this point (ATO may be risky, especially since you won't be there to monitor initial operation) is to have someone watch the tank.

 

[Jesshika]

Not too much change in the salinity, it stays around the 1.025 area. I do use an auto fish feeder, and I have set the light timer to come on later in the day when the hottest part of the day is already over. So it comes on at 5:00 at night and goes off at 2 am. This has helped with some of the heat problem because my lights heat up the water so much, which is why the past couple summers I've been just unplugging the heater and leaving the lid open and the water stays a pretty constant temp besides going up a bit during the day. I have no AC, it really sucks and its the time when I worry most about my tank overheating -_-
It gets kind of humid some days in the summer though, so I've heard humidity lessens evaporation vs dry air?

I will look into the auto water top offs though. Thank you for all the replies!

 

[Hebily]

your heater is on a thermostat, right? so if the water is warmer than it is set it won't turn on...

 

[Jesshika]

I put the heater to be at 82 but my thermometer on the tank says the temp is about 88-90 but then the heater is still on

 

[Hebily]

sounds like a heater malfunction, or miscalibration. try turning it down until it stays at a good temp.