Traveling

[saltypilot]

Out of curiosity how many of you guys travel for work and or just travel a lot.
I am interested in what you do to keep things as stable and in check as possible. And what some of your procedures are prior to leaving.
Do you guys run controllers? Multiple fail safes? Camera monitoring the tank??
What is the longest you have left the tank, and what are some pieces of advice everyone has learned over the years leaving the tank.
- I am setting up a tank, and trying to plan out anything and everything as I travel a good amount, anywhere from a couple days to a week at a time. Fully plan to get a controller in place, with ATO and as much automation as possible.
Thanks in Advanced for any input on the Topic!

 

[Flippers4pups]

A good tank setter goes a long way, preferable a person versed in reef keeping.

With that a camera seems the go to. It's not going to help if you don't have someone that can react when needed. You have to be watching to react and call someone to help.

Controller is a good investment to alert you when there is a problem and possibly allow you to react in a timely manner and shut off equipment, but once again, a person maybe needed to come by and react.

 

[CMO]

I do. Full Neptune suite and nest cameras watching the tank. I have backups on everything such that pretty much two independent devices need to fail simultaneously for anything to really go south (except for the main pump but I have a backup ready to go and someone to install it if need be). Also lots of sensors and rules to shut things down quickly in the case of a leak (to chiller or manifold for example that could pump a lot of water out if not shut down quick). Some redundancies include heaters and chiller own their own primary controller with apex as secondary and fallback to on, Tunze ATO as main with Neptune optical as a 3rd sump high cut off, skimmate locker with both Neptune BOB float and also reef octopus float tied directly to pump, reef octopus sump low float tied to pump. I might be a bit over paranoid though.

Wife testing alk while I'm out of town until Trident is out.

 

[Awesome Dennis]

You better bring her some flowers, that's a good one you got there.

 

[mvelo]

I second a tank sitter. Even if it’s someone that’s not a reefer. Give them a basic list of things to look for and a contact number of your local shop in case of an emergency. I went on vacation and had a tank start leaking and my friend was able to catch it and have my local shop run over and fix the problem before it was a catastrophe.

 

[fish farmer]

I have a pet sitter. I have written instructions with pictures of critical areas, such as float switches and tank levels. I don't have much automation on my tank other that an ATO. I don't go away for much longer than a week.

 

[Tastee]

I run mine on Apex, and as per CMO I strive for redundancy - not quite to that level though (-:

My chiller is standalone but powered by the EB6 so Apex can shut it off if it goes crazy. Main heater is on Apex with internal thermostat as a backup. Backup heater is non Apex. ATO is based on Neptune ATK so plenty of redundancy, and fed from a supply good for 3 weeks. I can also turn on my RODI permanently whilst away if > 3 weeks to give me an endless supply. Low sump level sensor and floor leak sensor give me some protection against other issues.

When I go away I turn on the AFS.

I run a CyberPower 1500VA UPS to protect my Apex and pumps. The EB6 powers the chiller, main heater, return pump, skimmer and wavemaker, but in an outage I only turn on the return, skimmer and wavemaker. A bit of clever programming gives me about 5 hours runtime in a keep-alive capacity. Longer term plans are to fit a battery to my solar PV system to provide longer outage coverage, and where I am outages are very uncommon.

Apex needs WiFi for fusion connectivity and alarms, but not for actually running your tank, so I live with that risk. I could run my WiFi router and cable modem on a UPS as well if I want, but haven’t done that so far.

For a week I don’t need anything done unless something goes wrong. For 4 weeks just minimal maintenance weekly. So as long as I have someone more expert on hand to deal with a bigger issue I’m fairly well set. My son is nearby and knows his stuff so could step in the breach if needed.

 

[spartanman22]

I travel enough to make it worthwhile to have failsafes. I have a full apex setup with leak detectors. I have a WiFi camera that allows me to get eyes on. Redundant ATO’s (float through apex and Avast Marine ATO), auto feeder (all fish eat pellets).

My tank is an AIO so it’s a little less complicated than a sump setup. The only real issues I’ve had when leaving have been if I go through a growth spurt and my alk gets depleted. That’s never led to any loss just a little unhappiness in the sticks. My next addition will be a KH Director to help alleviate that.