"0rion" wrote in message
...
I live on campus here at UCI and we are 'sent home' for a month during
winter break when the dorms are all locked up and we have no access to
our
rooms. The power is turned off and we can't get in until sometime in
January. Problem is, I have my fish tank in my room. It's a 15 gallon
Eclipse 1 show tank, 11 harlequins and one african butterfly.


Questions:

1. If I get a standard household UPS for the tank to supply power to
the
pump, approximately how long will it last? Not sure about the
specifications.

It would depend on the number of car batteries you were willing to
connect together to run the UPS.

2. Would sunlight from across the room be enough to light the tank so
that
the riccia won't die?

Any significant change in light levels would affect the plant life. The
question is whether the Riccia would completely die off in one month.

3. Can an autofeeder be set to one massive dose once every few days?

All the auto-feeders I've seen work on a daily routine, either with one
or with two feedings. It would be possible to set an auto-feeder to run
for one month though, easy. You could set it for a single daily feeding,
not too generous a portion and the batteries will be fine for 1 month.

4. Will my fish eat those disgusting time-release food blocks you get
at the
fish store?

To know for sure, you would have to try it before you go. Generally,
they tend to pollute the tank. The auto-feeder is the way to go.

I know it's better to leave it in someone's care but i literally don't
have
the resources to do it, nor the time. I need a few people and a car,
and
everyone i know will be stuck with finals and stuff. This is sort of a
last-resort that I am forced to take. Tank atm is completely healthy
and
clean, and I'll clean it every day for the week preceeding the month
off.

Don't overclean before you go. Let lots of light in. Set the
auto-feeder. Harlequins are fine at room temperature. Drop the
bio-wheel into the water. If using a UPS, drop a tiny powerhead inside
the tank (this might be the lowest power consumer available) just to keep
things stirred up a bit (and cause the bio-wheel to move around a bit).
There are dc powerheads which run directly off of 12V car batteries, but
you would need to source a tiny powerhead and that would take some
research and time to find/order & receive.

I wonder what a CPU fan would do underwater? (after adding a mesh so you
don't decapitate any fish). They are probably not 12Vdc, but they would
be low wattage...hmmm.

NetMax