Temp tank shut down?

I'm trying to get my tanks down to 1 or 2 max over the summer. I'll be gone a good chunk and will have a "fish sitter", so trying to make it easy.

So, my potentially stupid question is: How do I temporarily "shut down" tanks so I can easily start them back up late summer/early fall? They all have HOB filters and a sand substrate with lots of MTS.

Can I just leave everything running WITHOUT fish and have the sitter throw in a few pellets of food once a week to keep BB (and unfortunately, snails) going with NO required WCs?

I wouldn't mind drying tanks/sand completely out, but don't want a bunch of stinky dead snails and I can't bring myself to put all substrate and MTS in the trash. Not my style.

Yea feed the empty tank would wrk the snails will produce waste just
Have to add fish slowly as to not "shock the system" other option is toss in a cucumber or zucchini slice so the sitter doesn't even have to do anything. It will take longer to break down so you don't have to feed it as often.



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