reducing daily tank maintainance

[Deborah Armay]

Hi all. I have a 90 gal reef with radiums, ecotech wavemakers, 40 gal sump, protein skimmer. I wanting to possibly automate the tank a little more so that if I leave town for 2 weeks it will require minimum work for my son. (he doesn't have the knowledge or desire to do water changes, dose, feed, etc). Here's my idea and please tell me if this is oversimplified or not doable. Set up automatic water change, buy trident to automate dosing, feed with apex dos, ATO.

 

[Doctorgori]

Right now There are current threads on Apex reliability and tank automation .... check those out and good luck .... I personally have an Apex on a 210 and 150 and couldn’t own both tank and have a job and cut my grass ... lol

 

[BayouReefer]

Welcome to the R2R Family! it sounds like a fairly solid plan provided your son is aware of the importance of stability and he will still need to monitor the tank in your absence.

 

[Retro Reefer]

I would keep it as simple as possible.. no need for a water changes while your away, feeding can be cut back to every other day or less and having portions prepared in small containers or zip lock bags simplifies the process and reduces the risk of over feeding for you tank sitter. ATO should be at the top of your list but I would keep other last minute automations to a minimum.

 

[lapin]

Read about the Apex and the modules that you will need. Depending on your maint schedule, 2 weeks is prob not so long as to require much work besides feeding and top off. Maybe a sock change.

 

[Pntbll687]

What are you dosing now? If it's not a large volume then you could probably kill two birds by using kalkwasser in an ato to maintain calcium and alkalinity. And then get an auto feeder to feed some pellets once a day.

Things don't have to be super expensive or complex to get the results you want.

Unless you want to get an apex and Trident, then by all means go ahead and get it

 

[Reef AquaCult]

Auto water changes decrease maintenance over long term, not necessarily the week you are gone. I would setup large refugium in your sump with strong lighting to aid in nutrient export. Auto feeder is easy and $20 on Amazon. Not sure you need a trident unless you're checking alkalinity multiple times a day already, then it would be a life saver. I think the biggest things would be good ATO w large reservoir, large powerful refugium and auto feeder. Less than $500 investment for Fuge light and good ATO and you're set.

 

[Dom]

If you are only going to be gone for two weeks, there isn't a need for water changes. People go much longer than that without them.

I would show him how to feed while you are away. And he could do manual top offs when feeding until you get back and do something more permanent.

 

[Joedubyk]

The Apex will absolutely help your tank maintenance. And something like the mind stream/trident will decrease your manual testing. The Auto top off is absolutely the #1 first thing for maintenance and stability imo.