How to prepare for being away.

[spit.fire]

What do you mean premixed for top off?

[darkreef]

I would mark very heavy salt mix water and fresh water... My sitter was typing off with salt ... For the first day luckily he asked alot of questions and I picked it up. Then I red taped all the salt water buckets in my house .

[eli@fijireefrock.com]

gather all information needed or things you do on a regular basis and have it all on a computer file labeled by time of day...videos of you going through the chores as needed,and things to look out for in case of problems...something I would do if I ever leave for longer than a week,...

[SanguinesDream]

Originally Posted by spit.fire

What do you mean premixed for top off?

I will premix my water at .20 to account for evaporation and rises in salinity. I know approximately how much evaporation I have per week. The second week will be at a lower salinity level, I just have to figure it out based on no weekly water change, as I normally do a 1/4 weekly wc.

[intarsiabox]

Originally Posted by SanguinesDream

I will premix my water at .20 to account for evaporation and rises in salinity. I know approximately how much evaporation I have per week. The second week will be at a lower salinity level, I just have to figure it out based on no weekly water change, as I normally do a 1/4 weekly wc.

I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you or not, but your top-off water should contain no salt at all.

[SanguinesDream]

Originally Posted by intarsiabox

I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you or not, but your top-off water should contain no salt at all.

No you weren't misunderstanding, I was misunderstanding as I was still thinking about it from a wc perspective minus the actual wc. Thank you so incredibly much for pointing out the error in my logic.

[Aquattro]

I clean my skimmer before I leave, pre-pack daily food (or interval of visits) and leave it at that. My top off is automated. I wouldn't want anyone doing any type of water change. Everything else is on timers (controller).

[Craigdillman]

Leave a good set of instructions on feeding and cleaning you want them to do .

Also I think giving them a number of a fellow reefer or LFS and giving them a heads up or even ability to post a forum on here would be helpful in the case of an accident that you didn't plan for could help

[Borderjumper]

I would buy one of those containers people use for their medications.. They are little plastic boxs marked Monday, Tuesday, etc and put your daily amount of fish food in each one. You could even put frozen in there and keep the container in the freezer

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

I clean my skimmer before I leave, pre-pack daily food (or interval of visits) and leave it at that. My top off is automated. I wouldn't want anyone doing any type of water change. Everything else is on timers (controller).

+1 simplest and best guarantee that your tank will be guarded against any misunderstandings or crazy spikes in nutrients. The last time I went away for two weeks I just picked up several packages of the smallest size of ziploc brand tipper ware containers and pre-portioned out every single day's worth of food. Feeding my fish for my roommates was as simple as grabbing a container from the freezer, thawing the contents, and feeding.