Putting Tank on Auto-Pilot...FOR 3 MONTHS!!!

[LilElroyJetson]

You heard it right...I’m leaving my tank virtually unattended for 3 months. I am currently 2 weeks into the 3 month hiatus. I’ve already left the tank for a stint of 10 days in the past without issue. Since then, dosing has been dialed in along with most everything else and the feeding has been left to an auto-feeder. I set up a 32 gallon brute container to increase the auto-top off reservoir to last a little over a month and a week. I have a cloud cam to check in on things as well as a Seneye Reef Monitor.

I say “virtually unattended” because I have nobody doing regular checks on the tank, but I have somebody who knows nothing about reef keeping who I can call if I check in on my cloud cam and there is water all over the floor or some catastrophe happens that can go tell me what’s going on should I need them, but that person will not be called for any weekly check ins or in any other case. I may fly in at the one month mark to re-fill my r/o reservoir or I may have him do it as the water is already made and ready to be poured, but other than that, the tank is on it’s own. Hoping by not messing with it for this long stretch I’ll see some good growth from everything. I know this is a big risk, but it has to be done, so we’ll see how things go.

Has anyone else left their tank virtually unattended for this long of a stretch? What was your experience?

 

[Alexreefer]

Had left my 45 for a month. Skimmer pulled out nasty sludge and everyone was happy. Corals Also looked happier than ever. Guess my water needed to be a little bit dirtier

 

[LilElroyJetson]

Had left my 45 for a month. Skimmer pulled out nasty sludge and everyone was happy. Corals Also looked happier than ever. Guess my water needed to be a little bit dirtier

This makes me optimistic! My phosphates have been a little high but steady the entire time the tank has been up, and I have only seen nitrate show up once after a very heavy feeding. I've turned off my skimmer for this stretch as there will be nobody to empty the skim cup, so I'm hoping this allows the nitrate to come up to a detectable level while I'm gone.

 

[Alexreefer]

Good luck. I would like to see how this works for you. I will be leaving for 55 days in a week so we can both report what happens to our tanks!

 

[Xanthurum]

Hey man I’m in the west valley if you need, I can easily run out there and do anything that may pop up unexpectedly. I know you may not really know me but I was on the AZFRAG board until I got a new job and we started meeting in Mesa.

 

[LilElroyJetson]

Good luck. I would like to see how this works for you. I will be leaving for 55 days in a week so we can both report what happens to our tanks!

Looking forward to it! I took a "before photo," so I will be sure to post the side-by-side when I return. Good luck!

 

[LilElroyJetson]

Hey man I’m in the west valley if you need, I can easily run out there and do anything that may pop up unexpectedly. I know you may not really know me but I was on the AZFRAG board until I got a new job and we started meeting in Mesa.

I really appreciate that! I hope I will not have to call on anyone, but I will be sure to keep that in mind. Thank you!!

 

[Alexreefer]

Looking forward to it! I took a "before photo," so I will be sure to post the side-by-side when I return. Good luck!

Will take a before as well. Only have two corals rn as I lost to a spike in dkh. Will post a before and after as well

 

[KrisReef]

I’ve ignored my tank for 6+ months doing only top off water additions and random (low amount and infrequent) feedings after an aefw plague. The coralline covered the inside of the tank so I could barely see anything that was living or dying inside. Skimmer and calc reactor kept the water stable and the survivors looked better than expected when I started to maintain it again.

The entire experience has made me more motivated to be more hands off since.

Temperature is the biggest threat after salinity and alkalinity, and auto feeder issues in your system.

Also, I have noticed that those random catastrophic failures always appear after the wheels go up?

Gl!

 

[cain720]

One issue you might run into is increasing Ca/alk demand.

I've heard that some people experience low alkalinity and calcium after a long vacation since being out of the house lowers CO2 which increases PH and coral growth.

It will be interesting to see if your dosing holds true for the entire 3 months.

 

[LilElroyJetson]

I’ve ignored my tank for 6+ months doing only top off water additions and random (low amount and infrequent) feedings after an aefw plague. The coralline covered the inside of the tank so I could barely see anything that was living or dying inside. Skimmer and calc reactor kept the water stable and the survivors looked better than expected when I started to maintain it again.

The entire experience has made me more motivated to be more hands off since.

Temperature is the biggest threat after salinity and alkalinity, and auto feeder issues in your system.

Also, I have noticed that those random catastrophic failures always appear after the wheels go up?

Gl!

Great info. Thanks, @KrisReef!!

 

[LilElroyJetson]

One issue you might run into is increasing Ca/alk demand.

I've heard that some people experience low alkalinity and calcium after a long vacation since being out of the house lowers CO2 which increases PH and coral growth.

It will be interesting to see if your dosing holds true for the entire 3 months.

This is something I've given a lot of consideration. Right now, most of the corals are frag size or a little larger. Since leaving the house, my pH has gone up slightly due to a decrease in CO2. If I fly back to top off the r/o reservoir, I will certainly run some tests to see if my Ca/KH is holding true and will report back. Thanks for the input!

 

[ReeferReefer]

What auto feeder are you using?

 

[LilElroyJetson]

What auto feeder are you using?

The Eheim auto-feeder.

 

[LilElroyJetson]

6 Week Update:
Everything seems to be going smoothly! Don’t have a photo but FaceTimed my friend after having to have him pop in to reset the power strips on the tank after the Seneye alerted me that the power had gone out. Was probably out for 12 hours by the time he got to it. Fortunately everything survived and was doing fine, but when the power strips reset the chaeto reactor light got stuck in the on position and killed the chaeto, thus allowing for a golden algae bloom on only one of the rocks, which was odd, but unfortunately, I lost my garf bonsai which was one of my favorites as well as a couple other frags that were overtaken by the algae. So far that’s been the one hiccup, wanted to make sure to update the good and the bad. Happy the crisis was averted and thankful I had monitoring in place to address it quickly, and if that’s the worst that happens I’ll take it! Will continue to keep you guys posted!

 

[ZoWhat]

I have a cloud cam to check in on things as well as a Seneye Reef Monitor.

I would imagine your friend will have to go over every 7-10 days to clean the algae film off the glass walls... you wont be able to see anything inside the tank prob at the 3-4 week mark...just a green filmed over tank

 

[LilElroyJetson]

I would imagine your friend will have to go over every 7-10 days to clean the algae film off the glass walls... you wont be able to see anything inside the tank prob at the 3-4 week mark...just a green filmed over tank

Good call. I actually left the flipper on the glass and he did this. Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad yet, and now the glass is clean on all 4 sides. Also, I was able to walk him thru a Hanna checker alkalinity test and the Alk was a little high. 13.4 dKH. I had him put a few capfuls of Calcium buffer in to bring it down into the 12 range (I normally keep it at 12 dKH). I think the death of a few of the frags, with the garf having been one of my largest, caused a decrease in consumption and the dosing probably needs to be adjusted.

 

[LilElroyJetson]

It’s been 10 weeks that I’ve been away from my tank now!! Aside from what has been noted above, we’ve been catastrophe-free (knock on wood!). My friend has continued to drop in every couple of weeks to fill the brute with RO water for the top off, other than that the photos and the cloud cam seem to show things have been pretty uneventful, aside from a few shells laying on the sand from what look to be a few lost clean-up crew members.

Here’s what’s interesting, but not very surprising. I have left my skimmer off this entire time I’ve been gone (didn’t want to give him another thing to deal with), and my chaeto died a couple weeks ago. I asked him to run Hanna phosphate, Alkalinity, and Calcium tests for me, and the Red Sea Pro Nitrate test (luckily he’s a smart guy but walking someone thru this over FaceTime was not easy, especially explaining all the nuance).

As expected...my calcium consumption has increased with the coral growth, my alkalinity also dropped slightly but was still very well within the range I like to keep it. The interesting part, even with no chaeto and no skimmer, my nitrates are still at 0, but my phosphates dropped from 0.104 ppm to 0.008 ppm! So I’m obviously pretty happy about that, I’m assuming the excess nitrate that’s in the water due to the detritus build-up has probably helped bring down the phosphate but the liverock must be doing it’s job of natural bio-filtration.

There is also detritus build up in my sump now due to the skimmer being off and filter sock build up which I had him change out (I’ll have to vacuum the sump out when I get back), but another interesting thing, it looks as though detritus build up in one section on my sand bed and coralline algae grew over it?! Has anybody seen this before?? It was hard to get a clear photo from him but I posted below, front center of the tank.

Finally, what I consider to be the more serious issues, I was able to see a couple patches of bubble algae on the rock work via FaceTime, and there is clearly a HUGE vermetid snail tunneling (last photo) thru my Reef Raft Asia Nauti Montipora which has been growing like crazy ;Sorry. I’ve been told placing a clump of glue over the hole of the vermetid’s tunnel/tube starves them out and they die but I’m wondering if anybody has any advice as to how to remove the tube so my monti can heal up, without damaging the coral too badly. Any advice is appreciated if you’ve done it before yourself.

Anyway, just wanted to update you guys. Beyond anxious to get back and get the tank back on track and then bring in a few new additions with my long trip out of the way. Enjoy the photos! (Sorry for the low quality!)

 

[LilElroyJetson]

Hoping someone sees my last post and has some advice! One more week till I’m back with my little piece of the ocean! ;Woot

 

[ZaneTer]

Still another 9 weeks for me.