thedavidzoo
Members
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.
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.