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Inactive tank advice


Dustin

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Hey Guys!

First post in a while! I've missed you though. lol

I just found out last weekend that I'm going to have to go China for about 2.5 months and I'm trying to figure out what to do with my 75Gal tank (and its fish). I have a cycling 29gal tall at my parents place thats with LR right now, so I'll have a safe place to move the fish to in about a month when its done cycling. ( I can see it now, Cop :"Son, do you know why I pulled you over?" Dustin: "Yeah, live fish in back, must move now, no time." VRRRoom)

All silliness aside, I have a dilemma. When I get back, I want to go back to using my 75 Gallon. But I know that the people onsite will not be able to care for the tank as throughly as I would like while I'm gone. Plus most of the equipment will be moved to the 29 gal. Should I drain the tank of water before I go, and then have to spend 2 months recycling it when I come back home, or should I leave the water in, keep it circulating. There will not be fish in the tank, though I could leave a few cleaners to keep the algae down (snails and crabs).

Circulation Equipment that will remain once this tank is broken down.

1 Magnum 350 canister

1 Powerhead (600gph)

Also, RO/DI water from a home water filtration system (5 stage) should do the same thing as the aquarium specific RO/DI systems right?

Dustin

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I would leave the tank running with filtration and no cleanup crew or anything in the tank. Just leave the lights off and algae shouldn't be a problem (unless it is by a window). You may want to have someone add top off water to it once in a while though.

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You won't have to worry about lvls since the only thing that will be living in your tank while you are away is bacteria and micro fauna. When you get back you will probably want to do a large water change, but you won't have to cycle your tank again or anything like that.

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I don't know if you are like me, but when I'm gone for any length of time, I will continually have thoughts of the system overflowing, catching fire, running out of water, you name it, it would cross my mind until I get back.

To help rid myself of this, I set up a small web-cam (cheap, no need for craziness here) just to see how things are going. And in the event something did go wrong, I had a friend with a key that could drop by.

The reality of the fact is that it still has MANY hours of possible bad things going on, but no more so than while I"m at the office. It just let's me acclimate to the fear.

Depending on your tech savvy, you can go an initially cheaper route and leave a computer on with a remote desktop connection available (if it's a modern laptop, chances are it's got a camera in it already).

Of if you really want a small foot print and much lower power consumption you can take a look at a stand alone unit like some of these. After 2 months of desktop power consumption, you might equal the cost of having bought one of these.

-t

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I don't know if you are like me, but when I'm gone for any length of time, I will continually have thoughts of the system overflowing, catching fire, running out of water, you name it, it would cross my mind until I get back.

There are two guys living in the apartment while I'm away and theres an old windows 95 laptop across from it with a webcam so in case of emergency, the roommates can message me. They've also been taught the basics for how to shut the system down if theres a problem.

Now I just need to set up some kind of monitoring system for the 29 gallon because that one is a little more out of sight and out of mind.

And I'm thinking a 50% water change for the 75 when I come back and then measuring to see where it's at. Too much? too little?

And Sorry, its not Dustin from Fort Hood. : / I could be a replacement though! lol

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I'm not sure it will need such a large water change. I would check the parameters when you get back and decide then. Keep in mind you're taking your bio load basically to 0 so about the only chemical that will build up while you are away is perhaps a little Nitrate due to an decay of detritus in the tank. Also I would check your salinity just to make sure it's still good, but I imagine the rest should be fine.

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