Marine tank question. I have a couple of fresh water tanks and I know that I can leave them unattended for up?

Question

to a week...no food....lights etc on timers....Could I possibly leave a 100 to 120 gallon marine reef aquarium for a week without food? yellow tangs, clownfish, blue damsels, blue-green chromis..various invertebrates

Answer 1

Yep. The nice thing about tangs and clowns, damsels and chromis, they are and will eat flake food.

If you are feeling guilty about leaving them with no food, they have this neat little device called a timed feeder. You pour the flake food in the tube, attach it to your tank set it for the amount of food you want dispensed and depending on how you set it, will toss flaked food into the tank.

I have one attached to the out flow side of my back pack filter. I am very busy in the summer time and tend to work 7 days a week. When I do have free time, I like to go camping but feel guilty about leaving the cridders unattended. These work great. The electrical one runs around (and hav a battery back up) $15-20 the battery power only ones run around $10.

Feed your inverts before you leave and they will be just fine as well.

Sorry, I wanted to add, you can also attach a brine shrimp hatchery to the tank. It goes inside the tank and needs an air hose. The brine shrimp hatch and swim out of the openings. If you set this up a week or two prior to leaving, adding enough eggs at different times, you will have fresh live food for your fish. This is really cool. I only have one in my big tank with the meat eaters. (I've run out of plugs!) Even the vegie tangs will eat brine shrimp.

Answer 2

It is the ol' "it depends".

If there is enough algae growth etc. plankton floating around, maybe some brine shrimp hiding in a corner that somehow survived the feeding frenzy, in the tank the fish should be OK, techincally. A lot of fish can survive on what food is hanging around in the tank...oh and if any fish dies the other fish can always feed on that fish (heh heh).

Seriously, get a food timer like the other guy said. If you can't get someone to look after your tank that is.

Reefs are sensitive, so yes, in theory you could do it. But you run a risk. If you need to go you may have no choice. Power outages happen, you can't help them. Like there COULD be an earthquake that knocks your whole tank over too.

All things are possible as they say. Corals should be fine if you have enough light for them to grow the zooxanthellae algae they need to feed on. The fish should be ok feeding on encrusted algae. If you can risk the odd freak act of nature or government, then go for it. :)

P.S. get some dude (meaning human being) to come in at least once to check there is nothing wrong...even then you can't be sure they know what the heck they are doing, so a risk is a risk.

Oh and reading the person above, I remembered, certain fishstores will hold your fish for you if you really need to. Thing is catching them and bringing them to the shop again may stress them enough to kill them. Especially trying to catch fish in a rocky reef tank...good luck.

Answer 3

All those sad stories,but they all revolve around equipment failures and power outages. It's possible for the same thing to happen to you,but look at the odds of something like that happening. I'd bet that more fish have died because a well meaning neighbor or friend over fed or over-something elsed a tank. It 's true you will loose fish if the is some sort of incident and there' no-one there to correct it,but ask yourself how often something like this happens in your particular situation.-----Actually a week-long fast may be good for a reef system.----Enjoy your week.----PeeTee

Answer 4

I had a 65 gallon and had it all set to be gone on a 4 day weekend, I had it all covered so they would have food, lights, ect., guess what happened, a freak power outage and the pump did not kick back in, I have no idea why, but guess what I had in my tank when I came home, several hundred dollars worth of fish floating at the top of my tank. I would at least have someone check on them if you are going to be gone that long. To be certain check with a store you purchased them at and see if you can leave them that long unattended. Its a big investment and you don't want to loose it.

Answer 5

confident you could, yet attempt to be very careful. to alter it from salt to clean, you're able to have it filtering freshwater for variety of two-3 weeks doing on a daily basis a hundred% water differences to get any salt out. After this, it is going to be waiting to apply. yet once you have any doubt with the filter out or how its putting or although, only purchase a clean one :)

Answer 6

NO!!!!! That is the worst mistake you could make. My neighbor had a very exspensive $3000 new marine tank. She left for four days, and one of her heat light timers broke and every fish died. Its not the food thats the issue, its the other compliations. Hve somone that knows about tanks to check on it while your gone.