SPS while on vacation???

StikHedRon · May 20, 2014

I have a question in regards to my sps.... I have 3 250W MH and 4 39W T5's over my tank. Will my sps survive for 5 days with just the 4 T5's running over the tank and not the Metal Halides?

ritter6788 · May 20, 2014

I would think they would be fine.

Why don't you want to run the MH?

show time · May 20, 2014

In the wild it can rain for a week with no light so i think you should be find.

StikHedRon · May 20, 2014

I just want to make it easier on my mother-in-law when it comes to the tank and if I can eliminate some of the evaporation than that is one less thing she needs to worry about. I would think that the evap would be less without the halides as I won't need to run any fans on the tank to keep it cool.

Pete polyp · May 20, 2014

How about an ato?

StikHedRon · May 20, 2014

I have an ATO but I use about 3 gallons a day currently with everything running, that would be about 15-20 gal to be safe, not really wanting her to mess with it that much.

Pete polyp · May 20, 2014

Fill up a 30 gallon trash can with rodi.

rako1 · May 20, 2014

as mr salteater would say you need a reef buddy

Pete polyp · May 20, 2014

rako1 said:
as mr salteater would say you need a reef buddy

I'll be the reef buddy.... You can just ship all of your acro to me

I'll take real good care of them

StikHedRon · May 20, 2014

That would take a bit, I have over 70+ most are mini colonies, some frags and some large colonies! But thanks for the offer. LoL

mclawrence · May 20, 2014

I have a 20 gallon. Before I got my ATO I would put saran wrap across the top and that helped with evaporation. I'm usually gone for about 4 days at a time with no problem.

Eric N · May 20, 2014

You can probably turn off the MH for a few days. In the wild storms will come over and blot out the sun for days (Then we'll filter-feed in the shade). I personally just shorten my MH time period and set out up to a dozen 1 gallon jugs of water with buffer and supplements already in them so all my sitter has to do is pour and feed. I

saltfishguy18 · May 21, 2014

Leaving the mh off for that amount of time will def not hurt anything.

Msmith2813 · May 21, 2014

I have a 6 bulb T5, when I went on vacation for a week I only ran two (both blue+) out of the 6 bulbs while I was gone and everything was fine. I know that's a bit different from mh, but they'll be fine with less light for a while

jy544 · May 21, 2014

4 t5's would be fine for a week.

nivram · May 21, 2014

Pete polyp said:
Fill up a 30 gallon trash can with rodi.

This is pretty much what I've done in the past when leaving for cruises or long vacations.

I use auto feeders for the fish and try to make no new changes or tweaks to the tank in the days approaching the trip.

My goal is for my tank sitter to not have to touch or do anything to the tank. But look at it.

StikHedRon · May 21, 2014

Thanks everyone, I just bought the Eheim Everyday Auto Feeder to take care of feeding the fish while I'm gone. Just trying to figure out the evap situation and it seems I can leave the MH off for a few days and everything will be fine. I might give it a trial run here and see how things handle it and see what my evap rate is for the 5 days.

revhtree · May 21, 2014

I set up a 25g or so rubbermaid tub with he ato pump in there right in front of the tank and put the lid on. Problem solved! I have went out of town for 2 weeks like this.

shred5 · May 21, 2014

revhtree said:
I set up a 25g or so rubbermaid tub with he ato pump in there right in front of the tank and put the lid on. Problem solved! I have went out of town for 2 weeks like this.

Yep that's what i do...

StikHedRon · May 21, 2014

hmmm, could be an option. I use an aqualifter pump for my ATO and basic float switches, I will have to do some reconfiguring to get it to work but that is doable!