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Long holiday - how to manage tank?

Kezzab

Member
Joined
18 Jan 2016
Messages
1,492
Location
Carlisle
In the summer we're going to be away for a month and we're going to rent out the house on airbnb.

I've three tanks, 15l, 20l, 200l. I'm probably going to break down the 15l and move the 20l to my parents. That leaves the 200l.

It has a sump with top up reservoir, so i can add an ATU, but that will still need refill probably once a week.

I've also got an auto feeder that i need to experiment with.

I currently dose tnc complete and LC daily. I do not have an autodoser, yet.

Anyone got any top tips or experiences to share to avoid disaster?

Thanks
 
I built this for when I went away for over three weeks in 2012, which in reality is probably 5 weeks between tank maintenance.

http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/diy-dual-peristaltic-dosing-pump-with-alternate-switching.22332/

Along with fish feeder, turned down lighting & CO2 period as well, the tank survived acceptably well.

When the same was repeated in 2017 I was using this to control my tank. This has a holiday mode so no fiddling with multiple timers to reduce lighting & CO2 periods.

http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/how-to-use-a-plc-to-control-your-fish-tank-part-1.42993/

Basically if you want to leave tank unattended you need to slow it down, so it can survive longer between maintenance.

You don't have to do automatically, you could put food and ferts in measured labelled bottles and get a friend/neighbour to dose every day/frequently.

As for topping sump up, I have seen someone who clamped and inverted plastic bottle full of water in his sump water storage compartment and if and when water level dropped, some water emptied out of the bottled keeping the sump topped up.
 
Perhaps consider picking up some of these:

upload_2018-2-4_13-43-41.png


I'm away for a number of weeks later this year and will be using one of these while i'm away, thou i will also reducing light during this time.
 
Might be worth seeing if you can find a local tank maintenance company and get them to pop in once or twice just to check it/top up/water change as you are gone for a whole month. Particularly with renters in who you probably don't want to trust to do anything or notice problems.
 
Start the slow down process as early as possible would be my suggestion, the dosater shown above can be set for 30 days so its a case of working out how much ferts you are going to need, if you've slowed down the tank enough you can obviously have less salts in the mix. The dosater only holds so much and comes through a semi permeable membrane so maybe have a trial run the month before you go and make sure the its working rather than finding out it hasn't when you get back. just use it for macros and get some tablets for your substrate. I personally use Tetra Crypto which only contain Iron and traces and supposedly last 30 days slow release. I suppose you could look for similar that contain NPK as well.

Maybe try a dog walking company and make sure they are CRB checked. If only thing you want them to do is check and topup some water I don't suppose they care whether they're walking a dog or putting some pre prepared water in a tank. Maybe even a baby sitter if you have no family or friends who can pop in. I suppose just checking your water and maybe adding some will be an easy number and cash is cash.
 
Rather than mix your own and take a gamble you could just use Dennerle V30

Screenshot-2018-2-4 V30 Complete Dennerle.png
 
I think the issue is going to be if this thing doesn't hold a lot of water maybe 10ml will be getting a months worth of the salts to dissolve into such a small amount of water. According to the bumpf their V30 is 30x more concentrated than normal ferts.

 
Having said that, I don't think the V30 contains N and P, just been looking there out of curiosity as I am away a lot so would be a handy device. However, in the case of kno3 the solubility you can only dissolve 3.6 gram in 10ml of water and that would only give you 0.36ppm per day for 30 days in a 200 ltr tank and that's without any P.

Maybe the dosator can hold more ferts though. Looking at the length of the main body of it it's hard to gauge how much fert it can hold. Ideally though if it could hold 25ml or upwards you could probably get it to dose 1ppm per day for a month which should be adequate if the lighting is turned down or use multiple ones.
 
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I'm more thinking that over the 30 days the concentration of the fertiliser being dosed gets progressively less. But maybe I'm missing something!

Yeah I think that's it. Water from the tank enters the module and the fertiliser is then pushed out of the top. No doubt if you have water and ferts in the chamber over time they will mix and the contents will be watered down a touch. I'm guessing that over a period of 30 days everything that was in there will now be in the tank but I can't see that being exact science. Don't know how "super concentrated" Dennerle's stuff is and I'm guessing they wouldn't be working to say EI values but getting to EI values in such a small volume of water would be very difficult in a tank you size, sub 100ltr you could maybe get somewhere near.

I think best option would be maybe using the unit with (if at all) combined with slow release substrate tablets. You could use Osmocote either put in gel caps or frozen in ice into the substrate which should cover you until you get back. If the tanks slowed downed enough and obviously EI is above and beyond what’s needed as long as you have some releasing in the tank it should be ok. The plants will have built up reserves and if you have plant substrate there will be some in there as well. It's a case of not pushing the plants into using all their reserves as well as adding some. If you go down the route of someone popping in to check water levels perhaps premix some salts in a container and ask them to dump it in when they are checking the water level. Make a few batches up if they are visiting maybe once a week.
 
And, I've just noticed you live in Carlisle, thought I'd seen that name somewhere before. If you want me to pop in I'll give the plants a trim while I'm in haha. Only joking mate but you're not that far from me.
 
If I remember right, your tank has a sump. Could you not suspend a bottle above the sump with an airline in the end and adjust the drip using one of those airline valves and try and drip feed into the sump? You have 6 months or so to get the drip rate nailed down.
 
ah, we crossed over posting. Yours is also a good plan.
Sounds good mate, I was thinking of getting a litre bottle, drilling a hole in the lid smaller than airline, pull a bit of airline through and one of those plastic airline valves. Turn the bottle upside down and see if you can adjust the drips until it lasts a month maybe. Although at wherever rate I think you'll struggle make it last a month, maybe though. Just need to work out how much ferts to put in the bottle.

Still think root tabs are best solution though.

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@steveno do you know what the volume of the reservoir is on the dosator? Can't see it on the spec.

Looks like AverageWhiteBloke answered your question. Its meant to last 4 weeks which is adequate for me, looked like a cost effective solution, was originally looking at automated dosing system, such as one of these Jebao auto dosing pump, but came across the Dosator and seems to tick all the right boxes.



upload_2018-2-4_19-47-30.png


i have yet to use myself, wont need to until April, will only be away fro 2 week each time, so will set it going a week before i'm away to ensure everything is runing well. I'll will be using my Dosator with their V30 ferts along with their iron tabs.


upload_2018-2-4_19-44-55.png


The DIY auto top up looks interesting, thou the Jebao auto dosing pump could also used to top up you tank, you could pick up an 3/4 pump model, each pump can be programmed individually.

As suggested only away for 2 weeks at a time so not to worried about evaporation.

Hope you manage to find a suitable solution, Good luck.
 
Have you got one Steve? How much ferts can you put in one?

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