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Leaving home for 3-6 months

Keetchy

Member
Joined
8 Nov 2019
Messages
439
Location
Milton Keynes
So an opportunity has come up at work for a 3-6 month period working in New Jersey, USA.

My tank has been running for 1 month so is no way near fully grown out. I only have amano and ottos in there at the moment. Am dosing 25ml per day of Ei. Lights are on for 8 hours and C02 is on for 10 hours. And I'm doing at least a 50% WC weekly.

If I get accepted I was going to rip it all out and start again when I'm back. But a mate of mine said about leaving it running while I'm away. Thing is the misses wont do a WC on the tank but she will be ok with topping up the water when it gets too low. I can get auto dosing pumps for the ferts and the misses can wipe the glass down every day easily enough with the magnetic cleaner.

If I was to keep the tank running while I'm away, what times do you think I should reduce the lighting and C02 down to, seeing there will be no regular WCs getting done? My mate did say he'd do a WC on the tank for us but I'd say that'll be maybe once a month

20200214_213552.jpg
 
Hi' ive left mine for a month before. My gut feeling is that 3-6 months with the regime youve mentioned and itll be a grotty mess when you return.
There's potential for auto tjings to go wrong, then your wife is trying to sort it and cursing you...

I think I'd shut it down. Sorry!
K
Thankd for your input :thumbup:
You mean the auto dosers going wrong? There is the option of asking my mate to do a monthly WC and a trim down too. He loves stuff like that anyway :cool:
 
Your mates offer would be fine for a low tech? Wonder if you could alter to that while away Resume CO2 on return.Bit of a shame the tank looks good
 
Your mates offer would be fine for a low tech? Wonder if you could alter to that while away Resume CO2 on return.Bit of a shame the tank looks good
Thanks bud. With just 5 amano and 5 ottos in there, so no flake or pellet foods being fed to the tank, a monthly WC will be good enough wouldn't it? To eliminate the dosers failing, I could always get thr wife to manually dose from the bottles every day so that takes that problem out of the equation
 
Low tech is a possibility. But the likelihood is the carpet would fail. Not a certainty, but probable.
K
In what way mate? As in it would over grow or it would die off? If it dieing off is the issue then I could still leave lights and C02 on and daily dosing, but just reduce the light and C02 a little bit. Hopefully not too much for it to die off
 
Full low tech would be no co2. In that sceanrio odds are the carpet would struggle and possibly turn into algae magnet.

If you just reduced light but left co2 as it is you might get away with it.

Not sure when are leaving. But you could implement new rwgime now and see what impact it has before you go.
 
I'd shut it down and look forward to starting over when you're back. Take the plants and livestock out and get rid/maybe sell them. Drain absolutely as much water as possible out (dig a hole in the soil to ger right down) and then just leave it to dry out. Ready for when you are back
 
Full low tech would be no co2. In that sceanrio odds are the carpet would struggle and possibly turn into algae magnet.

If you just reduced light but left co2 as it is you might get away with it.

Not sure when are leaving. But you could implement new rwgime now and see what impact it has before you go.
Ah ok I get ya now. And if I go, we will be transferring next month. So really only have 3 or 4 weeks to come to a decision :eek:

I'd shut it down and look forward to starting over when you're back. Take the plants and livestock out and get rid/maybe sell them. Drain absolutely as much water as possible out (dig a hole in the soil to ger right down) and then just leave it to dry out. Ready for when you are back
It would be fun starting from scratch again, maybe change things here and there but I really like how the tank is turning out so was trying to see if there's any options to keep it running while I'm away :shy:
 
I don’t see any reason not to give it a go running mostly on its own - if it fails, so what ;) you’re talking about taking it down as the alternative :wideyed:

I’d try reducing the EI to about half current level, reduce lighting to 6hours, maybe leave CO2 period extended - especially if tank receives much ambient light - just adjust CO2 to a slower rate/level if possible

Depending on lighting vs tank depth, you could also raise light - similar to decrease intensity BUT most LED units have altered lightfall pattern when intensity is reduced, so depending ... (sorry I’ve not been about much recently so no idea what present tank system details are)

I’m assuming your mate has some experience?
It would be great if he can check on the tank every couple weeks (though detailed photos/video would likely suffice) and plan water change/trimming every month

Is your wife up for learning water change technique? in case of an emergency (I’m thinking CO2 issue)
- or if there’s a decent lfs, can anyone there be a backup person

Scape looks fantastic :cool:

Is that HC or MC carpet?
MC is much more forgiving of overgrowth and hard (intermittent) trimming


Congrats on the work opportunity :)
 
You could rehome the fish, drain it to just below the substrate level and run it emersed growth. Means no CO2, no water changes and you would probably come back to a lot of plant growth which you could then rescape with.
 
I don’t see any reason not to give it a go running mostly on its own - if it fails, so what ;) you’re talking about taking it down as the alternative :wideyed:
Yeah that's a good point. There's no harm in leaving it running and if it's not a fail when I get back then happy days, slight trim and carry on as I was

I’d try reducing the EI to about half current level, reduce lighting to 6hours, maybe leave CO2 period extended - especially if tank receives much ambient light - just adjust CO2 to a slower rate/level if possible
Ok i can do that. I have been told by someone else that 6 hours lighting should be ok too. So you reckon still leave the C02 on for 10 hours a day even though the lighting will only be on for 6? Or should I reduce C02 period along with the lighting period?

I’m assuming your mate has some experience?
It would be great if he can check on the tank every couple weeks (though detailed photos/video would likely suffice) and plan water change/trimming every month
Yeah he has experience in tank maintenance. He has a planted tank himself and looks after that perfectly fine so there would be no issue leaving the main maintenance side of things to him while I'm away. I just wouldn't ask him to do it more frequently than 2 or 3 weeks cause I'll feel I'll be taking the biscuit.

Is your wife up for learning water change technique? in case of an emergency (I’m thinking CO2 issue)
Unfortunately not bud. She likes staring at the tank but when it comes to the dirty side of it all, she wouldn't want to get involved. Lol. But I think if I can get my mate to do a big monthly WC and trim, I can get the wife to do a smaller weekly WC, maybe just 10 or 20% change using a submersible pump so all she has to do is plug it in.

Scape looks fantastic :cool:

Is that HC or MC carpet?
MC is much more forgiving of overgrowth and hard (intermittent) trimming
Thanks mate. This is the reason I don't want to rip it down cause I'm really happy with how its growing in so far. Its definitely my favourite tank I've had to date. And that is MC dude. Again, I'm really happy with how quick that has grown. 1 month ago they were just small balls of green dotted about. Lol
 
You could rehome the fish, drain it to just below the substrate level and run it emersed growth. Means no CO2, no water changes and you would probably come back to a lot of plant growth which you could then rescape with.
Ooo I do like that idea. Great idea. Ok question for this would be would I have to completely seal it off and spray it daily like you do when you do dry start method?
 
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