Just thought I toss up a few shots of how I leave a low tech planted tank for two weeks while on business travel.
The weekly fertilizer is set up per day in the pill boxes. My wife drops it in while I'm away. She tends to get busy while I'm gone and just relying on her to drop it in a few times during the week works. Realistically as long as she remembers twice a week it's fine. She just dumps in everything for the previous couple of days. I usually get back and need to do some pruning.
The lights have always been on a timer and I do two water changes (50%) before I go and when I return to reset the tank.
I've found that using two auto-feeders works. I've tried all sorts but these tend to work the best. Each one contains 1/2 of their normal feeding. If one fails the fish still do just fine for a little while. Generally with these I only have one day get clogged and not feed for the two weeks I'll be gone. Normally due to water being splashed up by an eager fish. I always put fresh batteries into them and make sure they are clean and dry.

The weekly fertilizer is set up per day in the pill boxes. My wife drops it in while I'm away. She tends to get busy while I'm gone and just relying on her to drop it in a few times during the week works. Realistically as long as she remembers twice a week it's fine. She just dumps in everything for the previous couple of days. I usually get back and need to do some pruning.
The lights have always been on a timer and I do two water changes (50%) before I go and when I return to reset the tank.

I've found that using two auto-feeders works. I've tried all sorts but these tend to work the best. Each one contains 1/2 of their normal feeding. If one fails the fish still do just fine for a little while. Generally with these I only have one day get clogged and not feed for the two weeks I'll be gone. Normally due to water being splashed up by an eager fish. I always put fresh batteries into them and make sure they are clean and dry.


