Can it last without you? Should it?

[Art]

Hi all,

I've been thinking after my tank suffered significantly lately. You can read more about it on my tank update.

What would happen to your tank if life threw you a curveball and you had to be away for an extended period of time?

I am now in the rebuild/restart phase and it's a great time to think about building in some things that may help my tank survive better an unexpected absence on my part. For example, I live in Florida and a hurricane can knock out power for an extended period of time. God forbid but I may get hit by a bus and spend a month in the hospital recovering. Or, heck, life gets busy and your focus must change to deal with that.

Up until now, my focus was always on short-term emergencies. For example, backups if there is an overflow or if a pump suddenly dies. I never thought about extended outages or absences.

It's all well and good to say that I'm here to do weekly water changes for the foreseeable future and I'm going to refill the CO2 tank before it runs out. I realize maybe this is just me given what I lived through but I thought it's worth at least asking you all what you think and what you've done.

Some of the things I'm thinking about are:

• Getting a larger CO2 tank so that it will have a better chance of last through an absence;
• An automatic water change system;
• A battery backup for the main pump that I can replace with rechargeable batteries; and
• Written instructions on how the tank should be maintained so that someone can take over if I'm not there.

What do you think?

I very much appreciate your input.

All the best,
Art

 

[ElleDee]

It has been incredibly important to me to ensure a certain amount of robustness in my tank design. There are a number of reasons for this, and honestly the primary one is me. I go through periods where I get overwhelmed with stuff and I am just not as productive as I normally am and do the bare minimum to get by. I don't like this about myself, but being prepared for it helps a lot.

It's a big reason I run low tech tanks. Once you get everything established, they are very forgiving! The last time I got busy it was because I was pregnant and then had a newborn (happy times, but it's a lot) and the tanks got by with dried fish food and occasional water top ups for a long time. Now, I did it all myself, but it someone else could have taken over easily, especially if there is someone that lives in the house. The plants suffered some as it got wildly overgrown, but bouncing back wasn't difficult once I was ready to get back into it.

I know giving up CO2 isn't something people are eager to do, but it's better than crashing your tank and quitting. Sometimes that's just the reality of the situation. And I would argue you can do more without it than people might think.

I am also in an area prone to hurricanes and occasional ice storms, so extended power outages as also a concern. My parents had a reef tank when I was growing up and I watched them deal with power outages and it ultimately was a significant factor in giving up the hobby. Planning for this situation is much different than the above problem. I have some air stones that can run off of a power brick, and a generator. If I think I might have an outage I clean out my canister so there's not a bunch of organic matter going anoxic inside. My plan of last resort is to take my livestock to somewhere with power - luckily I have a lot of family in the region we can evacuate to.

This mostly works, but I had a surprise extended outage during a severe cold snap and the tanks got down to the mid-50s even with some last ditch mitigation measures, but everyone made it through. I don't normally run heaters, so some of my livestock was totally fine, but I was worried about my espei rasbora in particular. That was an unusual incident because it was both unexpected and the power company kept pushing back their repair estimate, so what started as a 3-hour inconvenience ended up a multi day catastrophe that made the news.

 

[Koan]

A battery backup for the main pump that I can replace with rechargeable batteries

during a severe cold snap and the tanks got down to the mid-50s

I'm in an area that gets periodic catastrophic ice storms too


which of course come with 0° F temperatures for days on end
and have yet to install a whole-house genny either. It's on the list.. in the interim, this is a possibility and it has a solar panel charge option.

Yea it was really surprising to find that the reefing side doesn't have a gold standard reliable battery backup to get through power outages, seeing as gadgets are their thing.

I was entertained enough by this video to stock up on some calcium chloride and a flat of plastic water bottles lol. Offers a little piece of mind even with the hassle, especially if it's less than a 48 hour outage. Also keeping stocked up on painter's tape and Space Blankets





For rechargeable or D-cell powered bubbleators there are lots of options, this one also runs on standby and kicks an automatically when the power cuts. Or for bigger tanks Icecap has a standby that will kick in to run up to two Maxspect Gyre pumps, with a cool feature to dial down the power of the pump(s) and draw out the battery life.

Another good excuse to get a Gyre anyway

 

[Yugang]

Last year I have been travelling for nearly two months, and had my tank set up for 'hybernation' during that period and nobody to look after it. Same will happen later this year.

I have a cover so that my tank is nearly perfectly sealed, probably 95-98% reduced gas exchange (using evaporation as proxy). Reduce light and reduce CO2, automatic feeding.

So far a partial success, last year I turned off CO2 and my tank basically transitioned to low tech during hibernation. This year I expect to be away for 4-6 weeks, and will keep CO2 going at a lower rate, not off, while also dimming light and limiting the evaporation to nearly zero. I am planning to rescape after my return, clean all substrate, and use the plants that survived well enough for a new season until same happens next year.

It's a bit extreme case in point, but it does help me to better understand what is going on in the tank and perhaps some new ideas come from exploring these extremes.

 

[Art]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I have always found it difficult to go from high energy to low or lower energy during my planned absences. This is probably due to the type of plants I've traditionally kept (finicky, light demanding and sensitive).

Yes, as @Yugang mentions, I can plan for a hibernation period, I think I would return to a tank that I need to reset. Perhaps, it makes more sense for me to look to what @ElleDee recommends and transition to a low energy tank that can survive on its own for extended periods.

I'm lucky in that temp is not something I worry about. It will never get too cold here and most plants/fish will survive in the mid-80s if AC ever cut off. Although @Koan , your scenery is breathtaking! I wouldn't mind that for a time.

@ElleDee, when I think of no-CO2, I think of a very green, boring tank. I realize this is my issue and ignorance, I mean no disrespect. I guess I have to educate myself on what can be possible in a no-CO2 tank or low CO2 tank to see if it's something that will work for me. Any good examples?

 

[ElleDee]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I have always found it difficult to go from high energy to low or lower energy during my planned absences. This is probably due to the type of plants I've traditionally kept (finicky, light demanding and sensitive).

Yes, as @Yugang mentions, I can plan for a hibernation period, I think I would return to a tank that I need to reset. Perhaps, it makes more sense for me to look to what @ElleDee recommends and transition to a low energy tank that can survive on its own for extended periods.

I'm lucky in that temp is not something I worry about. It will never get too cold here and most plants/fish will survive in the mid-80s if AC ever cut off. Although @Koan , your scenery is breathtaking! I wouldn't mind that for a time.

@ElleDee, when I think of no-CO2, I think of a very green, boring tank. I realize this is my issue and ignorance, I mean no disrespect. I guess I have to educate myself on what can be possible in a no-CO2 tank or low CO2 tank to see if it's something that will work for me. Any good examples?

I understand what you mean. Usually when people do low tech aquariums they go for low light, and while those set ups can be super carefree, it severely limits what you can grow. But if you can manage higher light (PAR of 100-120), it open a lot of doors.

On the higher maintenance side, @sudiorca is leading the vanguard on growing more demanding plants without CO2. His methods aren't too hard to imitate, but there are a lot of elements to nail and pickier plants are more sensitive to instability. So, not that different from a high tech tank, just with slower growth! However, if you absolutely need to have a garden style aquarium, it's the way to go.

If you want something a step more forgiving, there are plenty of colorful plants that are easily grown without co2 as long as they have enough light with good color rendition, and the fundamentals are of the tank are strong enough. I have been experimenting with easy low tech colored plants for the last 2 years, and though it's not as balanced as I'd like, I think it's pretty vibrant. I don't have any crazy inputs here - this is my admittedly soft tap water, controsoil (which I don't recommend), and a chihiros WRGB2.



I am patient - it took a long time for things to color up.

On this thread there was some skepticism about these tanks actually being non-CO2 or not, but they all seem very doable to me. The easiest red plants aren't a secret, and they are all running strong lighting, so there you go. It's miles easier than what Sudipta is pulling off, but it's still not common knowledge that it's possible.

 

[Art]

I have a lot of studying to do…

 

[SingAlongWithTsing]

If something were to happen to me I think might be semi screwed.

Majority of the plants in my tank can survive without CO2 but I'm only one in the house that knows how to mix ferts.

Anything tech related is definitely screwed lol.

Plant maintenance/trimming might be another issue.

Feeding and water changes are easy enough, someone else in the family can handle that. Just plop a jebao pump in the tank and run the hose into the garden.