Leaving my aquariums for a month

[lucavicini]

Hello,
Within two months I will leave for a work assignment abroad for about 4 weeks. During this time I will have to leave the aquariums unattended. There will be a person coming once a week to water the plants and checking the house. Even though this person can drop products in the tanks I cannot really ask her to do things like cleaning the tanks, replacing the filters or do a water change.

Excepts for few guppies, mollies and neons the main inhabitants of the aquariums are invertebrates like shrimps and snails. The aquariums are reasonably planted.

Do you know if there is something I can do that will delay the necessity of water changes and filter cleaning/replacements?

I feel clueless about what to do

Cheers
Luca

 

[jcolon]

I feel for you ... I'm going on a family trip in July for about 2 weeks and I'm already wondering who's keeping an eye on the fish.

How large is your tank and what kind of filter? Canister? HOB?

It's really doing as much as you can do before leaving
1. A quick maintenance of the filter ... although in a well established tank maybe you do not want to mess with the filter.
2. Do a 75% PWC the night before to ensure the water's as clean as you can get it .. 50% at least.

Doesn't sound like a huge bio-load based on your stock .. you may be able to get away without doing a PWC while your gone ... depending IMO on the size and type of filtration of your tank. It's not preferable but if you have no-one to trust doing a PWC ... no choice really.

 

[James_in_MN]

Well, the good news is, you have almost 2 months to find a friend that can help with the aquarium while you are gone.

That's a really long time to leave a tank unattended without regular maintenance. And, if you have a person feed your fish that doesn't know how much to feed them, you'll have even more problems with nitrAtes and phosphates.

Is there an aquarium club in your area? Do any of your friends have aquariums? I'd start looking for either.

You could always find out if you could take your fish to a LFS to see if they could keep them until you come back.

 

[ShadoeFox]

For feeding I recemtly used new bought pill containers so my room mate could feed in spite of having no idea what he was doing... Though somehow he over fed one of my betas anyway...

 

[lucavicini]

I have 3 tanks, a 200L a 130L and a 40L. All of them have an internal filter similar to a HOB filter with 4 level of filtration (mechanical fine, carbon, mechanical coarse, biological). I change the disposable mechanical filter media every week. Considering how dirty the filter is at the end of the week I have the feeling that it is well under-dimensioned for the 200L aquarium. This is my main worry. My only hope here is to teach the person that is coming to check my house to replace the mechanical filter media...

For the feeding I will buy automatic feeders. I think that with a bit of experimenting it should go fine on this side.

I saw this product yesterday:
Product Catalog

To be honest I am a bit sceptical. They claim that by adding the product on a weekly base you can go without water change for 6 months. Also nothing is mentioning if the liquid id inverts friendly.

 

[lucavicini]

Maybe as you suggest I could check if someone from a LFS can come to my place to do the maintenance...

 

[James_in_MN]

I have 3 tanks, a 200L a 130L and a 40L. All of them have an internal filter similar to a HOB filter with 4 level of filtration (mechanical fine, carbon, mechanical coarse, biological). I change the disposable mechanical filter media every week. Considering how dirty the filter is at the end of the week I have the feeling that it is well under-dimensioned for the 200L aquarium. This is my main worry. My only hope here is to teach the person that is coming to check my house to replace the mechanical filter media...

Changing the filter weekly is very, very bad for your aquariums. There are beneficial bacteria in the filter media that you're disposing of regularly. I suggest that you use your liquid test kit (hopefully you aren't using inaccurate test strips) to find out the water parameters (ammonia, nitrIte, nitrAte) for your tanks.

What you should be doing is rinsing your filter media in old tank water during your water change. You should only replace your filter media when it's completely unusable.

You also don't need carbon in your filters. It's only good for removing medications from your tank, and will remove any liquid fertilizers that you may be adding for any plants in your tanks.

 

[rich311k]

Honestly it is only a month. Do a big change before you leave, only have the tanks fed twice a week, be sure the lights are on reliable timers, and you should come home to happy healthy fish and shrimp. You will need top do some water changes when you get home but all should be well.

 

[lucavicini]

Changing the filter weekly is very, very bad for your aquariums. There are beneficial bacteria in the filter media that you're disposing of regularly. I suggest that you use your liquid test kit (hopefully you aren't using inaccurate test strips) to find out the water parameters (ammonia, nitrIte, nitrAte) for your tanks.

What you should be doing is rinsing your filter media in old tank water during your water change. You should only replace your filter media when it's completely unusable.

You also don't need carbon in your filters. It's only good for removing medications from your tank, and will remove any liquid fertilizers that you may be adding for any plants in your tanks.

Wow. I naively followed the instructions of the filter and thought that the bacteria would settle only in the sintered glass filter and in coarse mechanical filter. What I replace every week is the fine mechanical filter media that is made out of synthetic wool. I will try to wash and reuse the media in the future.

The Nitrites level in the aquarium is close to 0 mg/l while nitrates are varying between 5 mg/l to 20 mg/l. When I have the carbon filter in, the Nitrates levels drop to 5 mg/l while without the carbon filter it rises to 20 mg/l. This is something I still cannot explain as the carbon filter should have no impact on nitrates.

 

[lucavicini]

Honestly it is only a month. Do a big change before you leave, only have the tanks fed twice a week, be sure the lights are on reliable timers, and you should come home to happy healthy fish and shrimp. You will need top do some water changes when you get home but all should be well.

This is what I will probably do. Do you think that adding few plants more will help?

 

[Homer8]

a month is nothing. As long as you have someone feed the fish you will be fine. One time i didnt clean my tank for three months and i checked the parameters and it was fine and i did a 50% water change and put in new filter media. As long as you tank is well established and you dont have a huge bio load you will be fine.

 

[lucavicini]

Homer, your words are music in my ears...

 

[WendiDell]

Just be sure and have your friend feed your fish a few times while your still there. That way if there is a problem with over feeding you can help her correct it before you leave.
Over feed will screw with your water and create the need for a PWC while your gone. A little under feeding won't hurt the fish nearly as much as bad water.
To many people come home to dead fish because the person caring for the fish don't have enough training on how much to feed, so they over feed by a lot.

 

[kittens]

I really like fish farming, I have had a freshwater tank, but last winterthey should not often so busy taking care of them is they were all dead. They are expected to raise their busy again but when so many can not take care of them carefully.