Vacations and Aquariums

[mchambers]

So it turns out that fish really can survive just fine without food for two weeks.

I just had a two week vacation, and had to prepare my tanks. Did lots of water changes before leaving, and also put automatic fish feeders on each of my four tanks. Cleaned my AquaClear filters so that I was pretty sure they would restart after any power failure. Adjusted and tested the feeders for two weeks before leaving, to make sure that they were working and not overfeeding.

Got home and found that three of the feeders worked well, but the fourth hadn't put any food out. Might have been a battery issue. In any event, all of the fish in that tank seem fine, if a little hungry, so I guess fish really can go two weeks without food. The tanks do have a lot of plants, which may have helped, by making microorganisms available for the smaller fish.

Other surprises: one tank seems to have a new variety of snail. I've seen several snails on the sides that look new, and noticed some gelatinous blobs on the side when I changed the water (snail eggs). The tank already had a couple of Nerites and lots of Malaysian trumpet snails, but these look different. This mystifies me, since I haven't added any plants to any of my tanks in at least six months. I did add some Nerities in mid-November, so I suppose they could have had eggs of other snails on their shells, but that seems like a real longshot.

Also, a tank that has only has Celestial Pearl Danios and Pygmy Corys somehow has a baby Panda Cory. I'm guessing he was a stowaway in some plants I moved into that tank from a growout tank I emptied before we left on vacation.

 

[Pat Kelly]

Cool
I used to have someone feed my fish while I was gone.
Now days I just prep the fish and then leave them alone.

 

[Cartel]

I just do a water change the night before I leave and feed them on my way out the door. I have done this for as long as 12 days so far with no loses. Our fish eat much better in our aquariums then they would in the wild so they are set! I prefer this method because it's worry free.

 

[mchambers]

12 days

I just do a water change the night before I leave and feed them on my way out the door. I have done this for as long as 12 days so far with no loses. Our fish eat much better in our aquariums then they would in the wild so they are set! I prefer this method because it's worry free.

That's what I've done for 10 days trips and shorter. This vacation was a full 14 days, so I wasn't sure fasting would work. Now I know, at least for some of my fish.

Might even be good for them not to eat food for a little while.

 

[zenins]

When I leave for more than a couple of days, I make sure the lights on the tanks don't come on.
The fish stay less active and require less food.
The only exception is new baby fish, they don't have the reserves to live off, so I have a neighbor, who also keeps fish, come over to feed them every two or three days.

You should check your home insurance policy, some require that someone come and check on your house anyway if you are gone for more than 2 or 3 days.
They are to check on your heating source to make sure water pipes don't freeze and burst, and that windows are not broken by the wind and so on ( leaking tanks and filters are not mentioned, but that is a possibility )

 

[mscichlid]

I usually will do a water change a day or two before I'm scheduled to leave. If I decide to feed, I'll use live food like blackworms. Otherwise nobody gets fed anything.
Fry worry me to death though. But I haven't had that problem in a while.