What do you do during long vacations?

MadHatter said:
i have seen an add for a wi-fi feeder/level tester/webcam system so you can feed from afar and when the levels get high you phone into your friend/famaly member/ w/e instructions to keep it under control untill you get back
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Actually, I am thinking of something that is somewhat automated, not quite the way you described... Not sure if it will work since I never worked with overflow system before...

Does anyone here thinks I can modify the following to drain water from the tank if it reaches beyond certain levels?

http://www.petsandponds.com/en/aquarium-supplies/c330182/p17105781.html

The idea here is to setup two big plastic garbage can next to the tanks. One is empty, the other contains full of conditioned water at room temperature. Setup one water pump at low flow and use a timer to pump conditioned water into the tank using timer. And the overflow device above will take care of excess water into the empty garbage container.

Haha I feel this is a recepe for disaster... :devil:
 
I wouldn't do it. You're setting up MORE stuff that can go wrong, not less. You don't want to be on the beach relaxing only not relaxing because you're worried about what's going wrong at home! Besides you want a person with two eyes and a brain to come by and check the gear, make sure everything is working properly.

The eheim auto feeders work well. Do you have a neighbor who can come by every 2-3 days to feed them and save the expense? You can pre-measure the food and put them out in those little plastic soufflé cups (used for "sauce on the side") or disposable plastic shot cups you get at the party supply store. I seriously doubt 2 weeks without food is advisable. Can they SURVIVE? Probably, but it is highly unethical to treat living creatures that way. You have a responsibility. I could SURVIVE 2 weeks on only water- doesn't mean I should try it.

For the actual gear and water- call a professional. Two weeks w/o water changes should be fine, but you need the top offs and someone to look over your gear. Call around to your local fish stores. Try the high end places that do tank set up and maintenance in office buildings and such for top offs. If you ask a friend or someone who isn't experienced you could be courting disaster. It is worth the money to have a professional come in just to check your gear and top off the tanks. It shouldn't be that expensive since you're not doing any full on maintenance.

Seriously, this is not to be left in the hands of an amateur. I have a dog sitter. Costs me $75 per day and she can't even handle top offs. Boy do I have horror stories... I'm away for 10 days. Told her if she hears the pump in the sump sucking air (drained the water so she could hear it) that means the water is low. Pour a 2 gallon bucket of water into the sump (she's short and cant reach the top of the tank with a bucket). The tank is 125 gallons. Well, she let the water get so low the siphon on the overflow was broken- (it must have been sucking air for DAYS) then she just started adding water to the sump like its going out of style- and more water and more water- but the overflow siphon had been broken, so you guessed it. The water was pumped into the main tank and couldn't get back into the sump. She just kept pouring buckets into the sump- needless to say the tank began to overflow right out the top. I have a tenant who lives underneath me. Calls her to say there is water coming through the ceiling. She calls an emergency plummer- who leaves a $350 bill to CUT A HOLE IN THE CEILING below me to look for the leaky pipe- which of course doesn't exist- the water is pouring out the top of the fish tank. She's nervous cause I am coming home and the pump is still making all kinds of noise and she keeps adding water!
$750 for the dog sitter $350 for the plumber $250 to have the ceiling repaired $100 for a replacement pump when this one burned out. I almost had a heart attack

This is not the only story I have like this... I have one outlet in my house that operates with a light switch, so you can use the switch to turn on/off lamps plugged into that outlet as you walk into the room. I use that outlet for my 55 gallon and obviously don't shut it off. I come home to find out flipped the switch. Of course the fish have been gasping at the surface (no filtration or water flow and ammonia levels are building). She can tell something is wrong, but she thinks they are begging for food. So you guessed it. She overrules my strict pre-measured feeding policy and adds MORE food to the tank... a tank without any filtration...

Hire a professional.
 
Once, I had a similar problem, because I was going away for a month. One of the guys at Wet Web Media told me that, back in the early days of aquariums, monthly water changes were the norm. So he advised me NOT to let someone inexperienced do water changes while I was away. He said that an established tank should be able to go for a month with no water change, and he was right.
I did a big water change before leaving, and then left a friend with pre-measured food bags, with instruction to feed the tank every 3 days. Everything was fine when I got home. I've done this twice now, with no problems.
 
Lol you could set up a camera in your home and watch it from your holiday destination and talk the person through the water change procedure.
 
Hmm, if 1 month without WC is ok, then this is not as big problem as I initially thought. This probably also depends on how heavily your tank is stocked. Perhaps a heavily stocked mbuna tank may not do as well in this case?

I actually don't mind investing into auto feeder if it works well. I found an article on someone who uses Eheim feeder on every one of his tank all the time without any problems, so I figured it works ok. Personally I wouldn't use it all the time. :)
 
If you decide to use an autofeeder, you might want to run it for a few weeks before hand to work out any "kinks" and to make sure it seems reliable.
 
LeahK said:
Once, I had a similar problem, because I was going away for a month. One of the guys at Wet Web Media told me that, back in the early days of aquariums, monthly water changes were the norm. So he advised me NOT to let someone inexperienced do water changes while I was away. He said that an established tank should be able to go for a month with no water change, and he was right.
I did a big water change before leaving, and then left a friend with pre-measured food bags, with instruction to feed the tank every 3 days. Everything was fine when I got home. I've done this twice now, with no problems.
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Does any of your tanks use hang on back power filters? When I was away for 2 weeks, the levels were a bit low. I could see them fail if I left them much longer.

Another excuse to use canister filters in all tanks? :evil_lol:
 
Turbosaurus said:
Seriously, this is not to be left in the hands of an amateur. I have a dog sitter. Costs me $75 per day and she can't even handle top offs. Boy do I have horror stories... I'm away for 10 days. Told her if she hears the pump in the sump sucking air (drained the water so she could hear it) that means the water is low. Pour a 2 gallon bucket of water into the sump (she's short and cant reach the top of the tank with a bucket). The tank is 125 gallons. Well, she let the water get so low the siphon on the overflow was broken- (it must have been sucking air for DAYS) then she just started adding water to the sump like its going out of style- and more water and more water- but the overflow siphon had been broken, so you guessed it. The water was pumped into the main tank and couldn't get back into the sump. She just kept pouring buckets into the sump- needless to say the tank began to overflow right out the top. I have a tenant who lives underneath me. Calls her to say there is water coming through the ceiling. She calls an emergency plummer- who leaves a $350 bill to CUT A HOLE IN THE CEILING below me to look for the leaky pipe- which of course doesn't exist- the water is pouring out the top of the fish tank. She's nervous cause I am coming home and the pump is still making all kinds of noise and she keeps adding water!
$750 for the dog sitter $350 for the plumber $250 to have the ceiling repaired $100 for a replacement pump when this one burned out. I almost had a heart attack

This is not the only story I have like this... I have one outlet in my house that operates with a light switch, so you can use the switch to turn on/off lamps plugged into that outlet as you walk into the room. I use that outlet for my 55 gallon and obviously don't shut it off. I come home to find out flipped the switch. Of course the fish have been gasping at the surface (no filtration or water flow and ammonia levels are building). She can tell something is wrong, but she thinks they are begging for food. So you guessed it. She overrules my strict pre-measured feeding policy and adds MORE food to the tank... a tank without any filtration...

Hire a professional.
Click to expand...

What a nightmare. This is the stuff that horror stories are made of. Makes me cringe just reading it Turbo...
 
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