Going on Vacation, What to do?

[tetraboi]

i'll be going on vacation for 2 months
what should i do?
someone will be home but they don't know anything about fish.
I can only tell them how to feed the fish.

[aquariumfishguy]

I assume your talking about that aquarium in your sig? If so, thats too small to let it go 2 months w/o a water change. I dont know, you could try it but thats a long time... :(

The easy part is feeding IMO. You can teach someone (anyone) how to feed fish with training... by that, I mean watching you for a couple days, discribing to them "HOW" you feed the fish.

As I say, I am worried about the overall water quality. :confused:

And by the way... Can I go sto-way? I'd love a 2 month vacation!! :p

[Matt W]

Well, the ideal thing to do would be to teach that person how to do a proper water change.

Other than that, it doesn't look like your fish load is very high. I think it could go 2 months without a water change if you do this:

1. Make a major water change just before leaving (75-80%).
2. While you are gone the fish should only be fed once a day on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.
3. The feedings should be small. Only what the fish will totally consume in 2 minutes.

[aquariumfishguy]

Hmmm perhaps since we are talking about the fish's lives being at stake here, maybe we could get someone with experience in leaving their fish home for a couple month's at a time?

Maybe that wont happen, but I feel like we need more than a couple opinions to help this person. Can anyone say "for sure" what would result from this vacation?

[tetraboi]

i could tell my friend to come in every weekend to change the water

[aquariumfishguy]

Hmmm...if you trust him/her, that might work. However, you should make sure they REALLY know what they are doing. And I would leave a printable paper by the tanks so people know what to do if a disaster was to occur for some reason.

Maybe a water change every 2-3 weeks would be better, because that leaves less chance for error by whoever is changing the water. Just a thought...

[tetraboi]

this person has a tank of their own. but yea i will tell them every 3 weeks

[aquariumfishguy]

Yeah you can get away with that, but only because of the small fish load you currently have. If they have fish, maybe they could do a gravel vacuum 1 or 2 times while you're away. :)