PLEASE HELP!!!! Will my tank die?

abirozy · Jul 25, 2014

Hello

I am going to be out of town Leaving Sunday Aug 3rd in the evening and returning Thursday Aug 7th in the morning and am STRESSED OUT about my tank as it is running great and (in my opinion) looking great.

HISTORY
EQUIPMENT
I am relatively new to reefing (about 6 months). I have a JBJ 28 gallon nano tank with an aquamaxx HOB-1 skimmer (rated 75G), a reef radiance dm-132e LED hanging light (both channels on timers), about 35 lbs of live sand, and about 35 lbs of live rock (stacked pyramid style... pics to follow).

LIVESTOCK
For livestock, I have two clowns, one yellow choris wrasse, one yellow neon goby, and one gumdrop clown goby. I also have a LOT of coral from frags (pics to follow shortly). I have mainly zoa's / pally's and LPS (a lot of Acan's, a few duncan, torch, frogspawn, etc...). I also have a few SPS (monti's I think), two chalice, some favia, clove polyp, kenya tree, and a few other assorted.

IMPORTANT FACTS
1) As I said, all are frags, so small, but I did go a little hog wild over 4th of july weekend and have stocked my tank to its extent (if there is such a thing).
2) I have had my fish for quite a while now and they are doing well, no sickness, etc..
3) All my levels are currently good, my nitrates are a little on the dirty side, but still around 30 so ok for my tank. Everything else is negligible. Calcium, PH, MG, etc... all are at acceptable levels and tested regularly.
4) I do a water change of approx 5 gallons weekly and top off almost daily with RO
5) I feed my fish a pinch or two of Thera A+ pellets a day

DOSING
I may go a little overboard, but monitor my levels and so far, so good, but I dose with:

Calcium

alily
Alk: So far maybe once a week as my Alk consistently seems high
Magnesium: 2-3 times weekly
Coral Exponential: 2-3 times weekly
Coral Elements: 2-3 times weekly
Phyto blast: 2-3 times weekly
Zoo Blast: 2-3 times weekly
Marine Snow: 2-3 times weekly.

On all of the "coral food" supplements, I usually cut the dose in 1/2 as I am usually giving two different ones on any given day.

QUESTION:

1) Is my tank going to self destruct? (Fish die, coral die, etc...)
2) What can I do to prevent this?

Thoughts:
1) I can do a water change right before leaving Sunday as I leave in the evening and dose supplements heavily.
2) I can do a water change in the morning when I return and dose again as I get back in the morning.
3) So basically, I will need to worry about monday, tuesday, wednesday.
4) I could buy an ATO device and attache a 5 gallon jug next to tank to help with evaporation... Do ATO devices work well? Marine depot has a newer one ay auto aqua that is supposed to be good and have very little moving parts to go wrong.
5) I could buy an auto feeder for the fish.

I am just not sure if this will work with my fish being used to being fed every day and my corals used to the heavy supplementation. Will lowering it for three days kill everything?

Sorry for the long email, but I wanted to give as much info as I could. Pics will follow to get an idea of the stock level of tank.

Adam

jwebber974 · Jul 25, 2014

Your tank should be fine for three day's as long as the power stay's on. Getting a fish feeder and a top off are good idea's, but three day's is not that long. The top off will be something you will want in the long run.

prsnlty · Jul 25, 2014

I agree with jwebber974. The ATO and power are your most important needs. The fish will not starve to death and the corals should be fine as there are nutrients in the water column.

Lidofishieboi · Jul 25, 2014

Make sure your powers good. Other than that you should be good to go. =)

cpayne015 · Jul 25, 2014

One question I have is would u like to go 3 4 days with out eating? If they are used to eating daily them I would buy feeder to feed them

eatbreakfast · Jul 25, 2014

cpayne015 said:
One question I have is would u like to go 3 4 days with out eating? If they are used to eating daily them I would buy feeder to feed them

I wouldn't worry about three days, especially if they are regularly well fed. Some fish don't readily take pellets or other foods that are usually used in an auto feeder, so polluting your tank when you are gone works against you. Also, in the tropics when a large storm hits fish bunker down and may go with out eating for 3 days until the chaos passes.

I would also recommend doing the water change a day before leaving, in the rare occurrence that in haste something goes wrong you have the day of leaving to fix it.

The ATO is important if you evaporate a lot, so if you do get one, I recommend setting it up as early as possible to make sure everything is operating properly.

If you are a worrier I would also consider getting a tank controller that can send alerts, but these can be pricey, though many consider the peace of mind well worth it.

TruRacr314x · Jul 25, 2014

Here are a few suggestions from me...

-As others said....an ATO is a key component. Once you make the investment, you will never regret it. It's probably one of the top 2 purchases I've made in the hobby. I recommend the Tunze...pricey...but the quality is worth it.
-A controller is good, but a better tool for piece of mind with me has been a webcam. I use the DropCam and can access it from my phone anytime I wonder how my tank is doing. It's also amazing to see how the fish act when nobody is around...
-If you don't want to invest a lot of money, check with your fav LFS and see if they'll stop out once to check on things. Mine charges me $50/visit and when I'm away for a week, I'll have them come twice. They have to drive a good distance, so it may be cheaper for you. Seems like a lot of $, but I have several thousands in livestock...so it's a no brainer.
-An auto feeder is a good investment as long as your fish will accept pellets or flakes. I have one that feeds pellets once a day..and if I'm gone for a few days, I'll bump it up to twice per day.

As everyone said, 3-4 days is not a big deal for fish or corals. A dry run is always a good idea too if you have time...go for a couple days without feeding/topping off and observe how everything reacts.

abirozy · Jul 25, 2014

Thanks everyone. I think I will look into an ATO and possibly an auto feeder. I actually feed my fish almost exclusively pellets, so it sounds like it would work well. As far as power, does anyone have suggestions on what to use as a backup? I am in a pretty decent city and don't usually suffer power outages, but YOU NEVER KNOW.

Thanks

Adam

pickupman66 · Jul 25, 2014

unless its unusually cold or hot in your home, a power outage of even a few hours wont result in losses in my opinion. my 180 went almost 8 hours without power when tornadoes knocked down main transmission lines in our area while we were 1000 miles away. I had ZERO losses when my friend showed up with a battery backup for a Koralia.

that said, the ATO is the key from multiple day trips away. it is probably the ONE SINGLE item that I cant live without in my systems.

now, given everything ive said, a small koralia nano on a computer battery back up will run a very long time.

myownlife · Jul 25, 2014

Find a friend that knows how to pick up water and pour it in. Other than that everything should be good. If you trust that he or she can feed correctly do so.

ReefCoder · Jul 25, 2014

Don't worry about feeding. Fish can go more than a week without food and many people don't feed corals. Any time I am going to ship fish I don't feed for 3 days so that they don't poop in the bag during shipping causing ammonia.