New To Site; Have A Question

[artbcpa]

Hi all,

I am new to the site and just wanted to say hello. However I do have a question that I need some help on.

I am going on a 6-week vacation beginning in March and am considering my alternatives. I have a 150 gallon FOWLR tank with six rather large aggressive fish. I am sure there are more alternatives than I have considered and would REALLY appreciate any input.

1. House sitter - I guess I would need to find someone who was familiar with taking care of an aquarium that size. At the moment I don't know anyone. This alt. might also be helpful for taking care of my outdoor plants (though my gardner said he would help).

2. Get someone (or LFS) to take the fish for 6 weeks - I don't know if this is even possible or how much this would cost. I also don't know what I would need to do for/with the tank during the six week period.

3. Continue what I do on short 3-7 day trips. My neighbors feed the fish though they know nothing about taking care of the chemistry, water level, etc. So I could have LFS come in once a week to take care of the tank. My other concern if I chose this alt. would be the house temperature. During March and early April in Southern California the weather could be anything. So at what temperature do I set my A/C - heater for the house? This is also a lot to ask of a neighbor.

4. Is it possible to automate the feeding for fish that need algae (tangs)? Would my carnivores survive with only dry food? If so, could I then just have the LFS come in once a week?

Any thoughts/comments would be greatly appreciated.


_________

Equipment: 150 gal. rectang. 48" X 24" X 36" high; reservoir filtration; Eurofil 125; 2 - Magdrive 950 water pumps; 200W heater; protein skimmer; ultraviolet sterilizer; 3 sets of power compact 96W lights
Livestock: Porcupine puffer, lunare wrasse, blue tang, yellow tang, engineer goby, hermit crab, black trigger and miniatus grouper

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Artbcpa.
I really wish that I could help you but I am totally ignorant when it comes to saltwater. I am moving this thread to the saltwater section where you may get more help. The link will stay here where you can find it.

 

[AK77]

Hi,

6 weeks is a long time to leave a tank unattended and would require a pretty large and sophisticated automated setup. Ideally you want someone who is proficient with marine fishkeeping and trustworthy too. Apart from entrusting my fishes wellbeing with someone else, I'm not sure I'd want anyone I didn't know fully, into my home with all my possession etc. You have 3 months to find that person, or train your neighbour lol.

You can get automatic feeders, although with large / numerous fish, this probably isn't a viable option, as the feeders probably wouldn't house 6 weeks worth of food, or would deposit insufficent amounts for the size/number of fish you have.

Aside from feeding the fish, your main problem is going to be evaporation of water from the tank, which in turn is going to cause your SG to increase, as well as pollutants to potentially toxic levels. To get around this, you either have a reliable friend or family member come in every few days and top up with RO water / dechlorinated tapwater (which ever it is that you use - if its tapwater, I'd premix it with the dechlorinator in plastic jerrycans in case they forget and dump tapwater straight into your tank). Failing that, you'd need a massive water storage container, with a perstaltic dosing pump / float switch, which will auto top-up the water level in the tank. As your tank is very large, its going to require a lot of topping up!

Since you have no corals, you won't require any significant amount of light in the tank. Normal light from your window will probably suffice for the fish while you are away. If you have metal halides, then I'd suggest leaving them turned off while on vacation, as they throw out so much heat and will increase the amount of evaporation. Although a cover would help reduce the amount of evaporation, if the temperatures get very warm while you're away, then your tank will not be able to cool down as effectively.

6 weeks without a water change though might be a problem, particularly if you have large hungry fish. Unless your fishsitter performs the water change for you, the only other option would be to introduce macro algae into the tank, to absorb the nitrates. Chaetomorpha is probably your best bet for this, although I'm unsure whether or not your tangs will attempt to feed on it. You could section part of your tank off with plastic mesh and place the chaetomorpha in it. Above this you could put some arcpod T5 compacts to provide a good light source. The algae will then feed on the nitrates and prevent them from reaching dangerous levels.

In all honesty, a fully automated system would probably be very expensive to setup, purely because of the amount of food/water that you will require to keep the fish fed and the SG level stable. On a 150G tank, I'd estimate that in the 6 weeks, you'd probably require in the region of 1000L of water in storage tanks, to feed the peristaltic pump, which although not impossible, is probably not an option for most people. I don't know if its possible to connect a float switch to an RO machine incorporated into an auto topup system. It might be worth researching this.

Its definitely a lot to consider. If your neighbour is willing to feed the fish and top up the water for you, then the macro algae setup will take care of the nitrate problem. Alternatively, if you have a sump you can place the algae in there. If you already have this, then at least that's one less thing to worry about!

I don't envy you lol

 

[seffieuk]

artbcpa

Phew, what a headache you find yourself with!

If it were my tank I would train and pay someone to look after the tank for the six weeks. If there wasn't anyone to do this I think I would look at a house sitter with fishy exp.

As the tank is large they wouldn't need to do a water change.
I would make all the water up, ready for top-ups - I would draw a line on the tank, so they know where to fill it up to.

Feeding: I would package up all the food in daily amounts and write instructions.

Give them the details for this forum, so they can check up with us if they are worried.

No corals, so you don't need lights on means less heat

Can you not set your AC with a thermostat?

Seffie x

ps can we have a photo of your tank please

 

[AK77]

Apparently you can connect an RO unit up to the mains and use it as part of an auto top-up system.

Link here to one example.

I did find some indepth posts on other forums too but, cannot link to it from here. Perfom a google search for "mains fed RO auto topoff". You should get the same results returned as I did. Initially it looks fairly complex but, its actually fairly straightforward and fail-safes are incorporated into the designs.

If you have an RO unit anyway then this may actually be a better long term solution to humping jerrycans full of RO water! Depending on your property type/construction and tank location, siting the ATO in the basement or attic will keep all the necessary plumbing out of sight and will only a require either a pipe through the floor or through the ceiling to feed the water into the aquarium. You will also need to run the float switches between the tank and the ATO system too. This could probably be concealed in your dry wall cavity.

This would mean your neighbour or whoever, just needs to feed your fish and if you do as Seffie suggests and make up the portions ahead of time, it makes it much simpler. On a tank your size, having a permanent auto-top off system gives you much more flexibility when going out of town and is easier on your back too. If I had a tank that size, I would definitely look into setting up something like this.

 

[ILuvTropicalFish]

You have been given alot of very good advice. I would like to add one thing though. I have an Eheim automatic feeder that I bought before I went on vacation one year. It will drop food up to four times a day I believe. I used it for vacation but ended up leaving it running. You can figure out how much dry food you want to drop every day and then just show someone how to refill it. Then all you have to do is get someone to feed your meat eaters, if you have any. It works well for me.