How long will corals last?

[Tuan’s Reef]

Ok, so if I had to leave the tank unattended for say, 10 days, other than a healthy water change when I get back, I should be ok?

oh yeah, for sure. I left my tank for 3 weeks without an issue. My old tank was consuming 1ml of alk daily. Was not packed wall to wall but there was plenty of soft , lps, sps in there. no issues . All i had to do was get a brute , filled it with RODI , setup wifi cameras, and make sure my apex is good to go. Once back, i did a 20% WC and all is well.

10 days .... is very doable

 

[fish farmer]

It sounds like I could easily do 10 days.

I have business related to my parents estate and need to go out of town. I have someone reliable coming in to feed tanks with fish, I just needed to know if it was necessary for any attention on the coral tank.

If you have someone coming to feed other fish it would be wise to have them take a glance at basic functions.

I went to Florida for 13 days. I had someone taking care of my cats and dog. They did feed my tank and had water levels to check. My ATO runs for about a week so they did have to top that once. Kalk is dosed out of another container which had plenty. Only complication was my dosing pump hose happed to fail at some point....I had a spare and it was on my to do list. My alk dropped and was under 7 ppm. My two "easy" sps were not happy, but they weren't too happy before. The rest of the LPS and softies were fine.

It all depends on how much you trust your equipment.

 

[Dom]

If you have someone coming to feed other fish it would be wise to have them take a glance at basic functions.

I went to Florida for 13 days. I had someone taking care of my cats and dog. They did feed my tank and had water levels to check. My ATO runs for about a week so they did have to top that once. Kalk is dosed out of another container which had plenty. Only complication was my dosing pump hose happed to fail at some point....I had a spare and it was on my to do list. My alk dropped and was under 7 ppm. My two "easy" sps were not happy, but they weren't too happy before. The rest of the LPS and softies were fine.

It all depends on how much you trust your equipment.

This is a good idea. I could have the person feeding manually dose Kalk.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

This is a good idea. I could have the person feeding manually dose Kalk.

I'd be careful the person filling in for feeding is usually not qualified for dosing of any kind let alone kalk manually...

What are they feeding, if not fish?


I use these cameras to monitor video and sound in the sump and point one at the tank while you are gone so you can also check in on your system

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[Paul B]

Yes you can leave it 2 weeks or 52 weeks as long as there is water in there and light depending on what kind of corals you have.

I rarely dose anything and some of my corals are decades old.

 

[Biokabe]

This is a good idea. I could have the person feeding manually dose Kalk.

Unless the person looking after your tank is an experienced aquarist, do not put them in charge of anything other than dropping food in the tank. Even that, frankly, is a gamble. Don't have them top off the ATO. Don't have them dose Kalk. Don't have them do anything other than look at the tank to make sure things are still alive.

I've heard far too many horror stories of people not understanding what they were doing and completely destroying the tanks they were looking after. Using tap water instead of RO/DI. Dosing a liter of product instead of an ml. Feeding an entire can of food, instead of two pinches. What seems like common sense to you and me is not common sense to someone with no reefing experience.

As far as your specific situation goes, you should be fine. Make sure there's enough water in the ATO to cover the time that you're away. Other than that, I wouldn't worry about anything for 10 days.

If your tank was full of high-demand SPS corals that were consuming significant amounts of nutrients and the like every day, and you were manually dosing - it might be a different answer. But for some hammers and zoas, it should be just fine for 10 days.

 

[Jaybeastin]

My tanks are a healthy ecosystem. So if you can't leave your tank unattended for two days, there is something wrong.

And no, I am not thinking about a painting of a reef. You may not "understand what this question is for", but frankly, I understand your reply even less.

It is a simple question: How long can a coral only tank be left unattended? No water changes, just an ATO.

Can I get away with leaving it unattended for a week? Two weeks?

The "why" is not important.

Mine can go 2 weeks but I only have softies and LPS. My calcium ALK and mag starts to take a hit.

 

[JCM]

Assuming no equipment failures and adequate top off supply, the tank will probably look better when you get back from 10 days.