Question of the Day Travel anxiety? What do you to prevent it when you travel?

[Art]

No matter how prepared you think you are, it seems like it never fails that when you're "out of town" or on vacation SOMETHING is going to go wrong with your planted tank. It could be a GFCI trips, a pump quits working, a fish quits eating, the ATO runs out of water (did you remember to refill it?).

If there's going to be a problem it seems like it's going to happen while you're away. Or maybe it's just me? Meh. Let's talk about it today!

1. Do you have travel anxiety when it comes to your planted aquarium(s)?

2. How do you mitigate problems happening while you're away? What plans or people do you have in place?

3. What's the worse thing to ever happen while you were away?

Please share your lessons learned, pro tips, cautionary tales and worse case scenarios! Pay it forward to the community so others can learn from your hard earned experience.

P.S., the picture is what I look like when I finally sit down at the hotel and realize that with all the hurrying, I forgot to refill the ATO reservoir!

 

[Art]

I'll start. Over the years, I've refined what I do and own to prevent issues while I travel. I tend to travel a lot for work and my wife loves vacation travel.

Some disasters over the years:

• I land in Venezuela and get a call from my wife that all my fish have mysteriously died while I was on the 3 hour plane ride. No, she wasn't pranking me.
• A cleaning lady accidentally pumped the auto feeder causing it to spin away from the tank. I fed the floor for a week.
• Canister filter sprung a leak that put gallons of water on the floor.
• GFI tripped and the tank sat powerless for days.

What I do to prevent these and give me peace of mind (kinda):

• I run a Neptune Apex Controller that alerts me with any power loss, leak, confirms dosing, monitors temp and pH and will take action if anything is out of range and feeds the fish.
• I have a travel checklist, like a pilot, that I force myself to walk through before I leave the house. In it are water change and clean pumps/filters, refill ATO, check auto feeder, etc.
• I force myself to do filter cleans every 6 months at least.
• If it's longer than a week, I have my brother-in-law (fish person) come over at some point and do an inspection.

What do you think? Any gaps?

What do you do?

 

[shopaquariumfish.com]

I'll start. Over the years, I've refined what I do and own to prevent issues while I travel. I tend to travel a lot for work and my wife loves vacation travel.

Some disasters over the years:

• I land in Venezuela and get a call from my wife that all my fish have mysteriously died while I was on the 3 hour plane ride. No, she wasn't pranking me.
• A cleaning lady accidentally pumped the auto feeder causing it to spin away from the tank. I fed the floor for a week.
• Canister filter sprung a leak that put gallons of water on the floor.
• GFI tripped and the tank sat powerless for days.

What I do to prevent these and give me peace of mind (kinda):

• I run a Neptune Apex Controller that alerts me with any power loss, leak, confirms dosing, monitors temp and pH and will take action if anything is out of range and feeds the fish.
• I have a travel checklist, like a pilot, that I force myself to walk through before I leave the house. In it are water change and clean pumps/filters, refill ATO, check auto feeder, etc.
• I force myself to do filter cleans every 6 months at least.
• If it's longer than a week, I have my brother-in-law (fish person) come over at some point and do an inspection.

What do you think? Any gaps?

What do you do?

For me, it's always been someone I trust to check in. I'm not worried about the fish not eating everyday. Usually I have someone check in every couple of days. If my wife is here alone, she has already been trained on what to do.

 

[Art]

If my wife is here alone, she has already been trained on what to do.

I used to think that too, until I got the "all your fish are dead" call...