Holiday tank advice

[Ichthyologist]

I am going to be away from home for a week soon. I don't want my wife to have to worry about ferts, etc. What advice can you give? I was thinking of reducing the light intensity from 3 T8 to 1 T8, leave the light on the timer with the same photoperiod. Turn off co2? Or reduce the bubble rate. Anything else I have missed?

 

[Greenview]

I wouldn't stop the CO2. Why not put extra ferts in the tank before you go and ask your wife to top up the ferts once in the week? That way you could keep the lighting and CO2 stable all week.

 

[MARKCOUSINS]

Yes for sure limit lighting eg.if you have the tank Lit for 8 hours cut to 6 or 5 try to cut over the period of a few days.Like greenview said keep Co2 going adjust it accordingly with your lighting,to come on 2 hours before lights on go off one hour before lights off aprox,use timers.Most important before going away check and clean all pumps,impellers etc andVERY important leave out water to top up tank suprising how much evapourates.A nice full Co2 bottle is good for peace of mind.Fert dosing depends on what you are using.Cheers mark

 

[ceg4048]

I am going to be away from home for a week soon. I don't want my wife to have to worry about ferts, etc. What advice can you give? I was thinking of reducing the light intensity from 3 T8 to 1 T8, leave the light on the timer with the same photoperiod. Turn off co2? Or reduce the bubble rate. Anything else I have missed?

Hello,
I'd turn everything off and keep them off. Then your wife doesn't have to worry about anything. I wouldn't even bother feeding that much, maybe once or twice, max. I would avoid large dosing prior to departure. Keep things simple.

When you return gradually, over the course of a week or two, increase lighting and CO2 starting from 1 bulb.

Cheers,

 

[flygja]

Actually I have dumped a whole week's worth of EI powders in my tank and left lights, CO2 timers all as usual with no undue effects before. When I was gone for 2 weeks, I mixed 1 week's worth of powders into a container and asked my wife to dump the whole lot in on specific day without any additional algae problems. This was on a 60L tank.

Because of that learning (and mostly out of laziness), I now fertilise my 300L tank on water change day, adding a week's worth of powders at one go. It does have some BBA problems but I guess it doesn't bug me that much. Very little GSA on the glass, I only scrub once a month or so.

 

[Ichthyologist]

Thanks for the advice I will post how she got on next week.

 

[ghostsword]

I went away for a month.. For ferts I use Aquafim, slow release. left lights at 4 hours daily, and co2 the same way as before.

Told my brother to feed the fish once a week, knowing that he would overfeed anyway (which he did).

After one month, no water changes, just top up, I have a bit of brown thread algae on some moss, but apart from that it is just fine.

Only the bolbitis grew, but no plants died, and no major issues.

 

[Ichthyologist]

I am back, I should go away more often, the Mrs get better plant growth than I do with all my fiddling.