How to skip a water change?

I go to college out of state, and for Christmas I'm going back home for two weeks. I do a 50% water change every week with my tank at school, and have been religiously since I got it (ranchu, red robin gourami, and 2 small bristlenose plecos). So the water quality doesn't tank over those two weeks, I was thinking of setting up my automatic feeder with half the food they usually get, as well as doing a 75% water change the day before I leave. Will that be enough to keep the water quality good? Also, I wanna make sure that halving their food for two weeks won't hurt them. Thanks!

They could get by unfed for two weeks, so a reduction won't be a problem.

Many fishkeepers dont feed their fish while away upto 2 weeks. Auto feeders can malfunction and badly foul your water up.
You could feed your fish well for the week running upto your 2 weeks Vacation, then do a big 75% water change and clean your filters out etc the day/day before you break up. Your fish would be fine without food for that period.

Ive done this with no issues

Hello. Just feed a little more and a little more often a few days before you leave. The day prior to leaving, do a bit larger than normal water change. Tropical fish can easily go for a couple of weeks without eating. While you're gone, the fish will subsist on the little fat they gained from the extra food. You don't need to do anything else in preparation for leaving. The fish will be fine and with no food going into the tank while you're gone, you'll come back to a much cleaner tank.

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Don't clean the glass between now and when you go, let the soft algae grow and it'll be another source of food for them to pick at while you're away. I don't trust auto feeders either, they have a tendency to malfunction, and if that happens when you're away, it's a disaster that usually spells doom.

The thing to keep in mind with fish is that they aren't mammals. They take their body temp and thus metabolism from the water temperature, unlike us, where we need food more frequently just as fuel to maintain our body heat. So fish don't need nearly as much food as often as other pets or humans need, and can easily go for 2-3 weeks without feeding, and it's usually safer that way. The risk of pollution to the water is much more of a concern than feeding them is over a two week period. Fish will always "act hungry" because they're opportunist feeders, they have to grab that insect when it's there, you know? And we feed them often because it's enjoyable for us. But we all have a tendency to overfeed in this hobby for that reason alone, and also because we have that mammal mindset of thinking they're hungry and would starve if not fed for two weeks.

But they'll be fine if you're gone for two weeks, and safer if you don't use the autofeeder at all. They will browse on tank algae and microcritters, so you will likely come back to a cleaner tank, and if you want to encourage that so that you don't feel so bad leaving them, you could leave the tank glass alone to let that stuff grow.

Anacharis is a soft leaf plant that's edible for the fish and grows fast. That could be another option for something that they could peck at while you're away. Although the others are correct in that fish don't need to eat nearly as often as we think they do.
If you could get someone to feed for you, I'd recommend pre portioning the food and storing it in little plastic containers. Non fish keepers are very likely to overfeed.

There was a time grasshopper's that I once religiously did 50% weekly water changes along with filter cleaning. I have since relaxed this the every other or even every 3rd week for partial water changes and I don't clean filters until the water flow is visibly reduced...as the filter houses a HUGE colony of beneficial bacteria disrupted by routine cleaning.

As for feeding, I have had great success in the past with Ehiem auto feeders but also tend to agree that fish can go 10 days to two weeks without food with no noticeable distress. It would be far worse if an auto feeder failed and fouled the water.

There was also a time that I fed twice a day...however these days I'll often feed only once, sometimes every other day and the fish are just fine. I've become convinced that in kindness, we often overfeed our fish..... in some cases, killing them with kindness!

Now having 'confessed' the above, it's likely that cutting back on feeding results in the success of reduced partial water changes as there is less pollution and it goes without saying that water quality is enhanced with living plants that convert pollution into plant tissue.

Hello Dad. That's sounds very weird all of a sudden. My Dad has been gone for many years and I'm an old timer myself. Anyway, as for the bacteria, it lives and reproduces on all the surfaces inside the tank, so the loss of some of it through the filter cleaning process won't be bad for the tank. I'm guilty of being a water change fanatic and have been for 20 years. To me, it's like taking a shower. You just do it. Of course around here, water is dirt cheap and even removing and replacing around 300 gallons a week doesn't drastically affect my water bill.

The absolute key to success in this hobby is two-fold. You keep the food to a minimum and remove and replace half the tank water every few days. If you can commit to this, you'll have very few, if any tank problems.

But, everyone is different. Thank goodness!

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Hello Addict. I've been in the hobby over 50 years and used to also obsess over frequent partial water changes. Now frequent partial water changes are great, just maybe not as critical as we once thought.
I also used to think that getting the crud out of the filter as soon as possible would be best. However, what's in there has (or was) quickly decayed and is relatively inert. So it doesn't need to be cleaned that often. So I merely point out my experience with reduced feeding along with reduced frequency of partial water changes.
Each to his own.

AbbeysDad said:

Hello Addict. I've been in the hobby over 50 years and used to also obsess over frequent partial water changes. Now frequent partial water changes are great, just maybe not as critical as we once thought.
I also used to think that getting the crud out of the filter as soon as possible would be best. However, what's in there has (or was) quickly decayed and is relatively inert. So it doesn't need to be cleaned that often. So I merely point out my experience with reduced feeding along with reduced frequency of partial water changes.
Each to his own.

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Hello. Can't argue with experience. Good for you!

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I am very slack on filters, if we read others here. I do what @AbbeysDad does - wait for the flow to reduce, or, with my many box filters in killie tanks, til the media is looking bad. That takes months.

I'm 57 years into fishkeeping, and have survived to retirement. I have been trying a more organized system of water changing. I used to aim for a week to 10 days, but I didn't record keep. I couldn't have a set day, every Sunday morning type plan because of other responsibilities. I thought I was dead on with the gaps between changes.

Once I set up a small whiteboard in my fishroom and started following closely, I realized I wasn't nearly as methodical as I wanted to be. I've been holding at large water changes for every non killie tank every 7 days of fewer, and killies every 10 days for a few months, and the differences in breeding activity have been striking. I have fry from things I didn't think I could breed without all kinds of careful preparation. There's no better indicator that things are working than fish breeding, and the ones I keep tend to spawn on a regular basis in the wild.

So I go with large water changes (I have unmetered quite soft and very clean tapwater) but my filters are a bit ugly. There are plenty of micro-organisms if I go away. I raise fry in tanks with gravel and plants, and if I go for a few days, they are bigger when I return. Makes me feel useless!

I don't do water changes that often. My tanks are well balanced and don't need a water change so often. My fish are healthy and reproductive. Well balanced tanks should be left alone as long as possible. The more one does to a tank, the more problems one creates. If a tank needs such a frequent water change, the tank is not well balanced. In the past, we always did it like this and we had less problems than most people have nowadays. Fish keeping has not changed if we look at the core of the hobby. The only thing that has changed is the overdone supplies and techniques available. So, why not keep it basic and have less problems? It has worked for me all these years...

Hello. I'd have to say that the large frequent water change is the foundation of a healthy tank. By keeping up a constant supply of clean water, the chemistry is always stable and the pollutants from the constantly dissolving fish and plant waste are always removed before they can build up to anywhere near toxic levels. An old, old tank keeper from the 1960s once told me that the more water you change and the more often you do, the healthier the tank. I still remember and follow it.

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GaryE said:

I am very slack on filters, if we read others here. I do what @AbbeysDad does - wait for the flow to reduce, or, with my many box filters in killie tanks, til the media is looking bad. That takes months.

I'm 57 years into fishkeeping, and have survived to retirement. I have been trying a more organized system of water changing. I used to aim for a week to 10 days, but I didn't record keep. I couldn't have a set day, every Sunday morning type plan because of other responsibilities. I thought I was dead on with the gaps between changes.

Once I set up a small whiteboard in my fishroom and started following closely, I realized I wasn't nearly as methodical as I wanted to be. I've been holding at large water changes for every non killie tank every 7 days of fewer, and killies every 10 days for a few months, and the differences in breeding activity have been striking. I have fry from things I didn't think I could breed without all kinds of careful preparation. There's no better indicator that things are working than fish breeding, and the ones I keep tend to spawn on a regular basis in the wild.

So I go with large water changes (I have unmetered quite soft and very clean tapwater) but my filters are a bit ugly. There are plenty of micro-organisms if I go away. I raise fry in tanks with gravel and plants, and if I go for a few days, they are bigger when I return. Makes me feel useless!

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I found out the hard way that sometimes the reduced flow isn't because the media is getting clogged. Sometimes it's because the intake tubes get clogged up.