I had to leave my fish tank alone for 5 weeks and just came back...Here is a summery of what happened:
Setup:
300 gallon. 96x24wx30h
Filter: 1 eheim 2262, 3 eheim 2028, 1 off brand ebay filter(HW-304A)
Fish load: mixture of cichlids(20), clown loaches(30), various silver dollars(6), bala sharks(3), tinfoil barbs(5), catfish(5).
Plants(portos and luck bambo with roots in water)
The bad:
The angle of spray bar on the 2262 was set too high. It was okay when I maintained the aquarium weekly and don't let the water level drop. But when it dropped during the vacation, water started to spray out from the cover. When my parents came to the house 3 weeks into the vacation, there was about 50 gallons of water on the floor. There were some water damage on the floor but thankfully with a house infested with a 5 year old, not too telling.
The plants took a beating from the tinfoil barbs and the loaches due to reduced feedings. The barbs would pull the vines of the portos in and rest of the fish would demolish the leaves. The luck bamboo's roots are all gone.
The ugly:
The water also got into 2 of my auto feeders(eheim), the resulting mess was alive with maggots and the crevices of the feeders etc are filled with small cocoons....absolutely horrible. I took out the batteries and power washed those...they are now outside. I will let ants take care of what I could not get out and see if in a month I can power these up.
The good:
All the fish survived and seems to be in very good health. The water is very clear but yellow tinted. 2 consecutive 40% water changes fixed that.
Nitrate was only about 40 ppm prior to the water changes.
Lesson learned from this: always check the water movement if the water level gets a little low.
Setup:
300 gallon. 96x24wx30h
Filter: 1 eheim 2262, 3 eheim 2028, 1 off brand ebay filter(HW-304A)
Fish load: mixture of cichlids(20), clown loaches(30), various silver dollars(6), bala sharks(3), tinfoil barbs(5), catfish(5).
Plants(portos and luck bambo with roots in water)
The bad:
The angle of spray bar on the 2262 was set too high. It was okay when I maintained the aquarium weekly and don't let the water level drop. But when it dropped during the vacation, water started to spray out from the cover. When my parents came to the house 3 weeks into the vacation, there was about 50 gallons of water on the floor. There were some water damage on the floor but thankfully with a house infested with a 5 year old, not too telling.
The plants took a beating from the tinfoil barbs and the loaches due to reduced feedings. The barbs would pull the vines of the portos in and rest of the fish would demolish the leaves. The luck bamboo's roots are all gone.
The ugly:
The water also got into 2 of my auto feeders(eheim), the resulting mess was alive with maggots and the crevices of the feeders etc are filled with small cocoons....absolutely horrible. I took out the batteries and power washed those...they are now outside. I will let ants take care of what I could not get out and see if in a month I can power these up.
The good:
All the fish survived and seems to be in very good health. The water is very clear but yellow tinted. 2 consecutive 40% water changes fixed that.
Nitrate was only about 40 ppm prior to the water changes.
Lesson learned from this: always check the water movement if the water level gets a little low.
