going on vacation

[gvran71]

will i have a nitire spike if i shut down my wet dry sump for about 5 days while I am on vacation?
I still have to manually add water as it evaporates out of the sump and i am afraid that I will burn out my pump if i am gone with no one to replensih the sump
my tannk is fully established (6 months) with plenty of live rock.
I have a blue face angel and 3 green chromis.
i will leave my magnum on for mechanical filtration.
leaving fish for the first time.
do automatic feeders work well?

 

[humuhumu]

I would try to get someone to look after my tank, but I know that it's not always possible. You could cover the tank and sump with plastic wrap to reduce evaporation and leave your pumps running. As far as the auto feeders, I don't know anything about them, but thought of trying them myself a few times.

 

[lovethesea]

we love our auto feeder. We leave several times a year and our neighbor checks in. Get a good one. Ours is digital and you can adjust how much flake you want to come out. We tape it to the top and set it for once a day.

 

[wjwaz59]

I am leaving my tank for the first time this Christmas and have the same concerns. I bought an automatic feeder to take care of food, and regarding make up water, here is what I'm doing.
I have a tall, thin tupperware container. I use this for mixing my make up water on a regular basis. Over the course of the last couple of months, I figure I lose about a gallon of water every three days. This is based on my setup, which includes a glass hood, which is another story, but I don't lose much water to evaporation.
What I'm doing is putting this tupperware container on a small stand next to my tank. I have a small tube running from the tupperware to my refugium, started a siphon and I tied a knot in the tube in order to regulate the flow. (Stole this idea from the SWF site regarding drip acclimation process) . I have the water level in the tupperware set to be the approximate equivalent height of two gallons of water, above the level of the water in the refugium. Last night I was running the 'drip' at about 2 drops per second, which was a little too fast (the refugium was net gaining water level). I slowed the drip down to one drop per second and I'll see if that is the right speed.
If all works ok, I'll slowly replace the water that evaporates while I'm gone, without risking overfilling the refugium because the siphon will quit before overflowing the refugium. You just have to play with the height of the water in the tupperware.
This was hard to explain, but maybe this will help.

 

[gvran71]

thanks for the tips.
I think the drip method is a very good ideas and will work on that tonight.
Happy holidays to everyone!

 

[wjwaz59]

Returned from vacation, and the 'drip' method to keep the refugium water level right, and the automatic feeder both worked like a charm