Vacations

[Greener]

So as I put in another thread I'm going on vacation for 2 weeks. I'm leaving on Sunday 17th. So before I leave I'm going to do water changes and I was planning on using the vacation tabs but am now changing my mind after being told they will cloud the water, bloat/kill the fish. I had bought them for my 25 G tank, 10 G tank, 5 G tank, 2.5 G tank, 2G tank and my 2 fish bowls. 10 g down has my bettas in them. So now I have to rethink my whole vacation plan, and now I have to trust that my brother will look after them. I'm thinking that not cleaning the tanks for 2 weeks should be fine, but I'm really worried about not feeding them. Just wondering what other people do to prepare their tanks before they head off on vacation?

 

[boxman]

Unfortunately my holiday experience turned a bit nasty.

I had an outbreak of ich and an injured fish 2 days before my 2 week holiday.

I would do a water change the day before you go (giving you a chance to go to the LFS if something goes wrong the day you go).

I would try and get either small little plastic bags or something you can put the quantity of food for each tank for each day of feeding.

Feed the fish every other day - you definately won't starve them (start feeding every other day as soon as possible - it's not a bad thing to continue it afterwards either!)

If you have betta tanks then I would suggest you explain to the person looking after the fish how to do a partial water change (probably needs to be done once).

The key things to remember is not to overfeed, make sure your filters are cleaned out (in old tank water) and leave a helpful LFS' number incase.

Happy holidays!

 

[Elise]

Hello,

I'm leaving next week for a two week trip to Colorado. I've decided because of the terrible condition of my fish after I got back from my trip last time (and I was only gone for 5 days), I am not going to ask my fish to be fed every day.

I've decided this is how it is going to go: for 5 days beforehand, all my fish are getting live bloodworms twice a day (I want to fatten them up!), the night before I leave, EVERYONE is getting 100% water changes, and then in the morning of my trip everyone gets fed as many bloodworms as it takes to get a full belly! (I know they'll love that part!!). Then, while I'm gone, only the guppies are to be fed one flake every day. Other than that, no one gets fed. About 1 week in, my friend will feed everyone some dried blood worms. Then, when I return, I'm going to clean everyone and I'm going to ease them back onto food.

Although, I really like the idea of the bags for each day. But, I don't trust the family to stick to the little bags (last time, when I got back, my water was muddy pond brown because my dad said that they were hungry still after he fed them how much I told him too!!! )

Hope this helps!

 

[Greener]

I feed them twice a day and so hopefully my brother will remember to feed them at least once a day. I think I'll do the baggy thing for my brother with the betta pellets.