leaving tank with long-term caretaker -- what precautions?

[Anonymous]

I'm going to be out of town for several months at a time and need to leave my reef tank with the person renting my house. He likes animals but isn't experienced. Any advice for preventing major disasters?

 

[dhoch]

Try to find an experience person, even if he is not the one to do the daily care, that can come in and look in on the tank if the non-experienced person has trouble/questions.

Dave

 

[Anonymous]

I was gone for 3 weeks, I made a list of daily tasks, every other day tasks and so on. I also had make up water and new sw ready to use, pre-prepared food (mixed and measured) in the freezer with instructions writen down. I came home to beatiful and healthy tanks. Then again, my tank sitter, was experienced.

 

[Anonymous]

I've left mine short term with inexperienced people in the past and been really happy on my return but I don't think leaving it for months without an experienced person to look in on it every now and then is a wise idea.

Maybe find someone experienced to stop in once a week to look things over and let the inexperienced person handle day to day things?

 

[Anonymous]

I think the most important thing is that he understands that he absolutely must give you need a phone call if anything looks unusual or deviates from how your instructions say they should go.

Most of the tank sitter disaster threads I see involve an inexperienced care taker who tries to "fix" a problem on their own.

I have had inexperienced people tend to my tanks and they did very well. although not for more than two weeks. I had all the food portioned out and gave very detailed instructions, and told them if anything looked funny, call me before touching anything.

 

[Anonymous]

Don't change anything within the week before you leave.

How complex is your system? Do you have skimmer, reactors, sump etc?

 

[Anonymous]

Label everything, and write everything down, and I think you are still in my area so give him my phone number!

 

[sawyerc]

Labeling everything is a very good idea. Then when there's a disaster and your sitter calls you and you say "unplug the protein skimmer" he know's what you're talking about. I would also stress that everything has to happen slowly in a reef tank (changes in temp, salinity). I have a tank in the office that someone else takes care of and they top it off with fresh water. One time I had done a water change over the weekend but ran out of saltwater so the level was down about 5 inches. When I came in the next day to mix more water to replace it, I found that she had added seven gallons of fresh water to the tank to "top off" Grrrrrr.

Also, make sure they don't over feed - well minded sitters are nutorious for that... so am I.

I would also ask your sitter to rinse their hands with fresh water NO SOAP before puting them in the tank. I'm always paranoid about chemicals.

And show them where a net is to remove a fish should one die. Though fish deaths shouldn't happen, the sitter needs to know to get the fish out ASAP so that bad doesn't turn to worse.

Long shot: set up a webcam to look at the tank so that you can see it over the internet. Either have them show it to you every once in a while or use a remote desktop software so that you can access the computer that it's hooked into and take a look for yourself.

And, the biggest one of all, as said before, make sure they call you if anything looks at all funny.

Best of luck.

 

[J.Howard]

I left my systems to my sister-in-laws care recently. She had zero experience, but as previously mentioned, I left a detailed list of instructions on daily tasks. I also spent a few hours -yes HOURS with her so I could show her how to do EVERYTHING she would be doing, even an emergency water change if needed. This allowed her to ask all the questions and try it with me there to oversee.

The other thing I did was contact the LFS that also does service in the area and asked them what their availability was for emergencies, since I don't have any friends in the area that could help. They explained that they would be glad to help my sister either over the phone, or come over if things got out of her control. I then added their phone number to the written instructions and highlighted them so she could find the info. in a hurry.

I came back to the same tank I left, and had a MUCH more relaxing time knowing that I was covered.

 

[Anonymous]

I have to leave my tank with my wife from time to time. The longest was 6 weeks. She does not know any thing just to feed and dose the tank twice a week. Here is what I do to help her out.

Put timeres on what ever you can
Premeasure your food and slightly cut back on feedings
make sure you have enough top off water to last the amout of time you will be gone
Clean your skimmer the day before you leave
Detailed WRITEN instructions with a number to an experienced person they can call
List of things NOT to worry about

In the past 3 years I have left my tank like this 6 times and have had zero problems except a hair algae out break just about every time I came home. My wife says I do not feed enough and she feels like the fish are hungry.

 

[Anonymous]

I left my 125 with my roommate for 6 weeks. Just showed him how to topoff and feed, and told him to call if anything happened. I let WCs go for that time, but you might want to do a large one before ya go.