Going on vacation what to do???

[fish guru]

Hi all, since summer break is comming soon, I am getting concerned about my fish when I am gone on vacation. What do you guys usually do? Only one of my fish accepts flake food. The other one is a diamond goby, and he only eats frozen foods. Also, I have a feather duster, and a suncoral tthat needs to be fed. please help. for my freshwater tank, I have an automatic feeder, and for my pond, I just need to drop one of those tablets. I am planning to go on vacation for about a week.

 

[Cichlidgirl91]

This is why it's good to have friends in the fishkeeping hobby!
I've never kept corals, so I can't comment on them, but I think fattening up (not overfeeding) your fish would be the best idea. Fish can go for a while without food in the wild, so a week shouldn't be too bad. I would only worry if you were gone for a month or something!

 

[BadRoma1]

yes, it would be okay as far as food goes. but you need someone who would check on the tanks once in a while. and make sure your lights are on a timer. the equipment failure would be my concern. have someone check on your tank and for an emergency give them your contact information. or you can just go for it and leave it by itself and hope for the best. the way my tanks are is that if power goes out, they won't restart without someone pushing the botton. i like it that way because i need to know if everything is running okay after the power went out, i get a signal that the power is out. but this wouldn't work if i would be out of town. so, just check and see what downfalls your system has and fix them before you go.

 

[missc4]

I feel your concern.I am planning on being away from my tanks this summer and only for two days and I am worried because of power outages we are having.and my sump pump does not always kick back on.I am still debating on if I will go or not..lol.A week with no food would not kill your fish.They may actually clean the tank up some for you looking for food.

 

[rxdoc_85]

oh yeah, your fish can go a week without being fed no problem. i agree with missc4 that they they might even clean up your tank a little! especially if you have hermets or something...they'll really start diggin around and clean all the nooks and crannies. and the corals will also be just fine. i'd just feed everything pretty good the week before you leave just to be on the safe side. i'm going on a rotation in june for 5 weeks, and i have to figure out what i'm going to do with my tank. a week is fine, but i think 5 weeks would be pushin it...haha. i'm thinkin about movin my tank to my parents' house. i'll have to educate them on all the ins and outs of taking care of my tank.

 

[jayghmi]

The big thing I would worry about is top offs so your salinity doesn't skyrocket. I have hired both my LFS and a neighbor kid to watch my tank (I vacation frequently). I have seperate containers for everything. If gone for a week, I would pre-measure some food into cups with very specific written instructions.

For the water I have a pre-marked spot on my tank, so if the water is below the mark they just have to fill with RO water sitting next to the tank.

My fish would be feed two or three times if I am gone a week, every other day if I am gone longer.

It helps to find someone who appreciates a tank, so they treat the responsibility very seriously.

 

[rdfriend]

I agree on the feeding. I am on vacation myself right now and will return tomorrow after a week. I do have a friend who used to have a saltwater setup and he has been feeding and checking on my tank. On the gulfcoast of Fl we get a lot of craziness with the power from surges to thunderstorms blowing in off the gulf and I have my tanks on GFCI plugs. Actually, I worry more about the water level dropping too low due to evaporation and my main pump and skimmer pump start sucking air.

 

[jayghmi]

, I worry more about the water level dropping too low due to evaporation and my main pump and skimmer pump start sucking air.

I should have said that as well! At the very least I second it!

 

[root81]

My work often takes me away for days at a time, so I'm automating as much as possible in my setup. ATO system (gravity fed, with float), I also have a UPS that will keep the system running for up to 2 days at a time. This is NOT a small battery that you get for your computer, but a large unit designed to run an entire rack of high-end servers, that would sell for about $6000. I aquired it from a client that was re-structuring their equipemnt room, and paid $200 to replace the batteries.

 

[fish guru]

Hmm... unfortunatley I dont have any serious aquarists around my area. i do have a couple, but they are all irresponsible kids and they dont have any experience with saltwater so yeah. About the feeding, I have a diamond goby, and a firefish. I thought that these fish eat plankton and other free floating organisms in the wild. wouldnt this mean that they need to be fed more frequently? You know, since there is like an abundant amount of that stuff in the ocean, so wouldnt they be eating regularly in the wild? or will they still be okay is not fed for a week. I do not trust any of my local people feeding my tanks because I have seen them feed their own tanks. They just dump a huge handful of food in there, and lets them just fall to the nottom. Because of this, their tanks have a thick carpet of blue green algea all over their aquarium.