I love what my wife does for me BUT.....

[kctango]

I had a trip that I took for work that kept me away for two weeks, I explained to my wife on what to do for my 34 cube, explained to her abour filling to gravity ATO bottles and the light cycles, feeding, and empting the skimmer. She did a great job, turn on and off the lights sometimes even gave my corals and fish 24hours of light then 24 hours of darkness to fix the first mistake she figured that would even it out, feed the fish about 1 months worth of food because they looked hungry. She did fill the ATO bottles kept the tank at its high water mark but used salt water for the top off. My salinity was only up to 1.030.

I really dont knock my wife she try's and is also very busy, the good thing is no die off of anything.

Has your loved one ever help you out also, let us know.

[kingfisher62]

Well , i was on vaca at my beach house with my wife and left my adult son to watch my tanks. He only had to feed them. It was real hot that week so i would call and see how the tank looked. He always said it looked great. My wife had to go home for a day and when she saw the tank she called me immediately. The corals looked like crap.

So she helps alot in that way. She does not help much in the husbandry of the tank but she alerts me if a coral is not looking well.

[carpenterman23]

I love my wife to death (she's a veterinary), But when it comes to my tanks I cant trust her. I have 2 freshwater one 45 gallon goldfish tank (4 about the size of bluegills) and one 55 gallon cube. She also over feeds them because they look hungry. I'm setting up a 55 gallon salt tank now (5 days in to the cycle) and wont let her touch it.

[Finkle]

My wife is pretty good at helping. She even calls me at work if she sees something funny. She will also clean the glass for me too, and feed on occasion. However, I don't know if I could trust her for a week. LOL.

[LukeGI]

My wife has been a lifesaver on numerous occasions for my fish/tanks. I have a 55g FW tank with injected co2 for the plants...when first getting the co2 going I had a faulty regulator and didn't know it till my wife called while I was at work in tears because all of my fish were gasping for air at the surface of the water. They were laying on their sides with most of the fish looking like they were dying or dead.
She informed me that the co2 was flowing rapidly into the tank...I was able to walk her through turning off the co2 tank valve, and then tried to walk her through doing a water change with my python system, but she was unable to get it to go onto our faucet.
She couldn't lift my canopy off the tank, so she only had a 3"x20" opening to get at the water with a cup and slowly change the water out.
She spent quite a bit of time saving those fish and only one died because of that event.

She has also saved me with my SW tank when I forgot to top off the tank and the pump was sucking in air, she was able to get RODI water from my system and pour it into the tank.
She is a blessing!

[TP123]

I've learned the hard way about having people care for tanks. It's amazing how badly they can screw up.

My first experience was with my roommate and a 10 gal FW tank. I left detailed instructions including feed 1 wafer per day, NEVER more than 1 per day. I can home a week later to brown water, thousands of pond snails, and nearly a bag's worth of wafers on the bottom of the tank. I lost just about all the fish.

Since then, I get the small paper cups that are commonly sold for bathrooms (I think they're about 2 oz). I put one days worth of food in them, and seal them up with plastic wrap. I usually put 1 out per day I'm gone, but sometimes less. If it's someone who is not familiar with caring for a tank, I hide every other bit of fish food. This has worked out very well so far.

The one really nice thing about FW tanks is that just about every fish other than small fry can go for a week w/o any food. Unfortunately with SW, that's not always the case.

Best thing to do if you have a wife/husband who will have to care for the tank is to have them feed it with you there. It's easy to get them feeling comfortable with the right amounts and maintenance requirements with you there. Once they know that, they're less likely to make mistakes. The big issues usually come from someone who have no experience with fishtanks. Even a little experience can make a big difference.

[bnumair]

i dont trust my wife with my tank either. i have noticed her slipping food to the fish and when i ask her response is the same like others mentioned earlier "THEY LOOK HUNGRY".

[Palting]

My wife helps just by letting me do the reef, and by her appreciating the results of the labor. Maybe an occasional dirty look when a new package arrives by UPS/USPS, but that's it. Help with the tank? No way! And that's from both of us !

[DoubleM 10]

well she is not my wife but my gf is apart of most of the fish processes i do. so i want to the carib and she took care of the tanks for a week.

no death. all healthy

the tank temp was a little high but that was not her fault. my dad turned the a/c off in the middl eof summer.

other than that she did great

[Sk8r]

lol: I made a written manual for my tanksitter, along with a frontpage list of tests to run and what the results should look like, and my cell number. This worked really well!

MY s/o, while I was away, remodeled the sump, revised the plumbing into a neater form, as I'd been intending to do, cleaned the skimmer with vinegar, and did all the requisite maintenance: I got back to a nicer tank than I left. Such a nice surprise!

[rbredding]

Originally Posted by kctango

Has your loved one ever help you out also, let us know.

yes... so I automate as much as possible... (thank you Neptune Systems)

[gofor100]

Originally Posted by rbredding

yes... so I automate as much as possible... (thank you Neptune Systems)

+1... one way to limit overfeeding is to measure out how much you want them to feed each day.

Everything else is automated.

[montego]

Let our wives do what they do best..

Leave our tanks to rely on: (add to list)

Automation of lights
Autofeeder
Webcam on tank

[Lynnmw1208]

heh I find this thread amusing as I am the wife and I have sole responsibility for my tank. I'd like to think that if I had to leave that my husband would be able to do top offs with RO/DI and feed the appropriate amount though since I taught him everything about fish that he knows.

[funkejj]

I am blessed with a wife who takes the same interest in the tank as I have. There is a written manual for where everything is stored and what to do if..... I am gone for 24 hours at least 2 days a week so I depend on her to do alot of stuff for me. So far so good she has not screwed anything up since July.

[Chris27]

The trick is to make it simple, the more "stuff" on the list, the easier it is to hose things up. When I leave, all my wife has to do is feed the fish.....if she overfeeds, so be it....the tank can handle it. If you have a tank that can't handle a week's worth of overfeeding then it's time to get a better skimmer, install a refugium packed full of macro algea and beef up the clean-up crew.

Performing a thorough groom of the system before you leave is also a vital step, clean the pumps, refill any reservoirs, add some more kalk, refil the 2-part jugs, etc...

She doesn't have to empty the skimmer, turn lights on/off, add water, do tests, do water changes, clean it or do anything else. When I come home I do a water change and clean the glass and all is well.

[mitsu_matt]

Count your blessings... My wife hates the tank, hates the smell, hates the noise, hates how it doesnt fit her decor and most of all HATES THE MONEY I PUT INTO IT (if she only knew). I would rather let my 6 year old take care of it!

But I still love her

[Sk8r]

Anybody who has a spouse who is passionate about SOMETHING should thank their lucky stars and consider that they have proof of life---there are plenty of spouse-objects, male and female, who plop onto the couch, open a beer, grab the remote, and stare slack-jawed at the idiot box all evening. Being interested in doing something is what life's about, imho.

[mallorieGgator]

I haven't had a bad experience with my husband. He's great! I do a lot of the maintenance and feeding but he helps most of the time. He'll feed if I need him to, he helps attach corals and picks spots with me to put them. He also helps with the water changes. He's a great guy and a good helper!
I have had to have someone watch the tank for over 2 weeks. I wrote a manual and he did everything accept scrape the glass often. When I got home I freaked because I could barely see into the tank (that's when there were some phosphate issues). Ahh! lol.

[UnusualSuspect]

Years ago my wife decided to medicate our freshwater tank in response to some perceived problem (she's always finding problems that I haven't noticed - sometimes they're even real problems).

She didn't do the dosage-per-gallon math right and **WAY** over-medicated. I lost about 95% of my livestock. She felt awful about it, and has let me maintain the tanks since then.

She still finds lots of real-or-imagined problems for me to fix, though.

[gofor100]

+1 on just letting the spouse feed (and even that can be accomplished with an auto-feeder). If my wife made me do anything more than just feed her horse, I would be in the same boat as her.

I have the following to automate:
> Auto Top Off of RO/DI water
> Drain in my Skimmer to drain excess skimmate
> LiterMeter III Dosing pumps (to dose Ca/Alk/Mg)
> Digital Timer for lights
> Back-up battery for Vortechs (in case electricity goes out while I'm gone).

Nothing else really needs to be done other than feed with this equipment. On my next upgrade, I'll be doing automatic water changes... can't wait.

[vorm]

I don't have a wife, but about to have to go on a trip for the first time since I setup my tank and worried about the tank sitter. Still trying to decide who I trust the most, my gf, one of my close friends, my dad....

I thought about typing up very detailed instructions complete with full color pictures for them. Still I have nightmares that I'm going to get a voice mail on my cellphone going something like this:

"Hey man, your instructions didn't say anything about how much salt I'm supposed to be adding to the tank, I looked on the bucket and it says 1 cup per 5 gallons, so since your tank is 105g that comes out to 21 cups so that's what I added. Hope that's right. Also, the bucket is almost empty now and I so I'm not sure I'll have enough for when I come tomorrow..."

[Finkle]

These are all funny stories/ideas.It is great to LOVE what we do. It's like having kids with special diets/allergies. It has to be done perfect and finding the right one to do it is hard.

[James404]

My wife is great about the tank, I think she cares as much about it as I do. She helps alot especially when new livestock comes in she is usually the one home so she knows how to acclimate and all! I'm usually at work IM'ng her buggin her to take pics so I can see my new coral or fish LOL

[billdogg]

My wife does well. She's never had to do more than feed however. She does like the magfloat :-)

Way back in the day (late 1980's), I had, before anybody really knew better, 54 critters in a 55g tank. A little of everything. Fish, including a couple tangs. anemones. corals - hard and soft. Crabs. shrimp. a lobster. scallops. the list goes on.

All running using NO T12 lighting, a couple canister filters, a under gravel filter with - gasp - powerheads!, and a skilter. I did ~ 15g water changes weekly. It was beautiful. The I went to Put In Bay for a 5 day weekend. Left my then GF in charge, with written instructions covering everything. First thing she did when she came over was turn off my AC. It was the end of july. got to over 105 that weekend. Needless to say, it was all cooked. I called her and asked if she had noticed anything not quite right. She said no, it was all looking great this morning. Yeah - right. She came over - said she'd just have her daddy give her the $$$ and we could get all new next week.

Ironically, I had spent the weekend deciding that it was just not working out with us. That one sorta sealed it.