leaving for vacation Q's

Im leaving frinday to go to disney world , taking my son. ill be gone 10 days .
my g/f sister is staying at my house. she is 21 so i cant rely on her to do to much. i will do a water change right befor i leave she basically just have turn the lghts on and off, and drop a lil food in every other day. my concerns are with my skimmer it neeeds a lil tinkering every once and a while, and cleaning the cup. MY tank is 3months old 3 scarlet hermits, 1 peppermint shrimp, and scooter dragonette. my tank is going great right now. perfect water parim,crystal clear and very little to no brown or green bad algae no aiptasia (not anymore thanks pepy), and hoping to add my clownfish when i get home. so you see ive came along way with lil trouble so i wanna keep it that way. oh yeah my question is can i turn my skimmer off for the 10 days just so i know its not over flowing do to g/f sister not adjusting it right?

 

my skimmer broke and i ordered a new one, i did not run one for 13 days. when i go on vacation i leave enough top off water for the hole time im gone. and i would put the lights on a timer they onl cost $10 at hd or lows

 

i would keep it running. maybe show her how to clean out the cup and top off the tank? I would also just put your lights on a timer.

 

Topoff, topoff, topoff your biggest worry.

Pre measure out some fish food in little containers of some kind, and mark days times to use... need minimum amount.

Little to worry about elsewise...

Maybe leave emergency # for her to call if real disaster strikes. Power out, etc.

Make sure to take along some sleeping meds for yourself so you do not stay up all night worrying...

 

if you have a local lfs they might babysit the tank for a price, if not good wishes. reef relief sells an awto that i have never had a problem with. or she can put a little water in the tank on a daily basis. i dont know how much evaporation takes place on your tank. but putting all the water in prior to leaving may either not be enough so she would have to know how to put water in it anyway and putting in all that water at one time will drop the salinity down. in regards to your skimmer its the best of both evils, her or your phsyci, you could either turn it down to minimize the output, show her what to do, or just stop it all together and deal with the tank on the return. if the skimmer is off that short period of time there really shouldnt be any major issues. have a contact # so she can get ahold of you. and if you dont want to measure out the food, show her how much and what to do. who knows you might bring another reefer in this world without knowing. she might get hooked like we all have.

 

Your tank is fairly new and you really dont have much in it. I dont think that ten days with the skimmer off is going to hurt you in anyway. If you have a refug, that would be a better back up. IMO, I dont see why not. As for the feeding, I feed my fish every 3 days and they are fat.

 

she was just here and i gave her the whole run down. i think she should be good. i premade gallon jugs of fresh ro/di water evaporation top off.ill do a water change tommarow and get my salinity up to almost 1.026(is this too high) i figure there would never be enough evaporation to drop the salinity past 1.023. i got my skimmer tuned just right so she just has to empty the cup when its full. i hope all goes well , im really looking forward to getting my clownfish when i get back, cant wait to go to the new living seas exibit(renamed after nemo) hopefully it will get the family excited for our new nemo.

 

1.026 if just fine, enjoy your vacation.

 

+1 on that.

I guess every tank is different but generally speaking there isn't much to skim 3 months into a set-up. My tank is just 7 months old and I only started skimming last week.

I would turn off the skimmer and enjoy myself as much as possible.

 

You dont lose salinity when you lose water to evaporation though right? If anything you'd gain salinity because salt wont evaporate out and all you'll be left with is more concentrated salt water... i guess you might lose some salt to creep though..