vacation

[Wiz]

Omg. Thought I could handle the worry. But idk.
Live in nh. Drivin to fl for disney. Gonna be gone a full week. My reef will be largly unattended! Gonna have my sister in law come every other day and follow my instructions. She knows nothing about reefing. And if for any reason we lose power I will be in big trouble. Ive set a saftey catch for the water that will drain. But when the pump comes back on the tank will not have enough water and the pump will run dry!!! I'm so scared. The weather should be nice but......
I need reassurence that I can't have :--(
Not to mention I just switched calc and alk addatives...
Please pray for me!!! Lol

 

[rs1831]

Yeah, know the feeling. I'm leaving for Cancun on Saturday leaving from Vermont. I hope everything goes well for both of us!

 

[pugcrush]

It sounds like you got it covered. Do you have a controller? People think they're pricy, but it's a small investment for reassurance.

Also, if you have a old smartphone laying around, you can install an app to turn it into a webcam. Then you can watch the tank when you want (and be sure sister in law is following directions).

 

[Wiz]

No controller. I'm mostly just worried about power loss. Its the only thing that could be horrific. And a controller or web cam won't help that.

 

[Wiz]

A full week away from the house. Just got back from Disney. Tank looks fantastic and my rose bubble appears to be splitting again:-D!!

 

[melev]

I'm glad everything went well, but you still need to resolve the issue with power loss and automatic resume. Post up some pictures of this safety catch you've got in place so we can help you correct it.

 

[huskerreefatl]

Good to hear that the week went by without issue. We had a month vacation this past summer and I worried a ton. I trained some neighbors how to take care it, wrote a detailed SOP on tanking care of both of our tanks, did a huge cleaning before leaving, made an extra brute full of RODI, and automated as much as I could. There was some GHA growth but other than that mine did well. The key to vacations, in my opinion, is a good SOP for the caretakers and automation on your tanks. By automation I mean, a controller to control your lighting, dosing, feeding (some pellets if you use them), ATO, and Temp/PH checks. I have the Reefkeeper Elite so most of my stuff is automated and I can check my temp and PH from anywhere in the world. I also set alerts, just in case either went up or down too much and I set up a webcam facing the tank so that I could check on it or talk to my tank keepers through it if needed.

 

[Wiz]

Don't have a controller. Lights have built in timers. I preportioned and wrote detailed instructions for calc, alk, food, and top off. and got daily reports on temp and condition.

 

[FlyinBryan]

How often do you loose power and for how long? I'm going to be gone for a week myself. I have a guy coming to check my tanks like once maybe twice. We loose power too but not for any great length of time and very rarely.
If you have a controller you'll only know one thing..you have no power. Worth the $$$ for that? Me either.

 

[thabizness]

I hate going on vacation. I have a controller and still worry. The worst is when I leave the country on a cruise and have no internet access so no clue whats going on so I can't react... I went on vacation to Chicago and some algae clogged the overflow. Not enough to flood the display but enough to trigger the high water level float. I couldn't tell that the tank wasn't flooded tho - just that the ATO went longer then normal. Was able to shut off the return via apex until I got back.

 

[huskerreefatl]

How often do you loose power and for how long? I'm going to be gone for a week myself. I have a guy coming to check my tanks like once maybe twice. We loose power too but not for any great length of time and very rarely.
If you have a controller you'll only know one thing..you have no power. Worth the $$$ for that? Me either.

I think a controller is worth the money. We very rarely lose electricity but you are right, if we do, the controller is worthless. I have the battery backup on my vortech so the powerhead can go up to 36 hours. I also oversize my sump to hold an overflow unless something crazy happens.

 

[Wiz]

So i needed to enlarge my refugium in order to handle my bioload. I piped in a 30g long stand alone fuge. Which I love and dropped nitrate and phos to undetectable in 3 weeks. Which it has remained.
The problem is that if the power gets cut, the water drain from both displays would overflow my (now) undersized sump. The only solution I could think of was to install an overflow on the sump. The syphon is oversized and sits over the side of the sump and a tote along side. Its full and on standby unless the sump fills. When that happens the syphon dumps the excess water into the tote. It works beautifully. And will save the floor of my second floor apt.
When the power is returned the pump tries to fill both tanks. But there is not enough water. This will cause the sump to run dry and burn my return pump out if I'm not there to replace the toted water. That is what i was
worried about. I would lose my return pump but I save my apt.

I'm glad everything went well, but you still need to resolve the issue with power loss and automatic resume. Post up some pictures of this safety catch you've got in place so we can help you correct it.

 

[Wiz]

I live in nh. We lose it every winter. Mostly for an hour or two. But it lasted two weeks a couple years ago.

How often do you loose power and for how long? I'm going to be gone for a week myself. I have a guy coming to check my tanks like once maybe twice. We loose power too but not for any great length of time and very rarely.
If you have a controller you'll only know one thing..you have no power. Worth the $$$ for that? Me either.

 

[huskerreefatl]

I just installed a check valve on my return with solvent unions on each side of it to prevent back syphon but i can still take it apart to clean it, if needed. Now very little goes back to my sump when i shut down the return. It sounds like that would help you as well.

 

[Wiz]

Sounds like it would. The piping is really close to the wall because my apt is small. It would be alot of hard work. But maybe worth it.

I just installed a check valve on my return with solvent unions on each side of it to prevent back syphon but i can still take it apart to clean it, if needed. Now very little goes back to my sump when i shut down the return. It sounds like that would help you as well.

 

[huskerreefatl]

Depending on your setup, you can build it, then discount the old one, cut it, connect with a coupling, and put back in. I have a ball valve just above my return pump so that i can easily disconnect it or swap out the return pump if needed.