Vacation Nightmare...

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StevesPrettyCool

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Sep 16, 2011
Messages
139
Location
Central Florida
I ended up going on an unexpected week vacation from FL to CT, where I grew up, and only had an hour to get ready. I barely had enough time to pack and didnt have much time to plan for feeding the fish. A good friend of mine, who has owned tanks all his life, was fish sitter for the week. I just got 10 african cichlids, and had 5 petricola syno. catfish and common pleco for at least 7 months. I have two DIY Co2 set ups and a large bubble strip (to provide the air needed at times when the co2 gets high, i just leave the air on 24/7), as well as a canister filter. I was in contact with him all week and things were going well. My last day away I called him to confirm he can pick me up at the airport and he was riding to my house to feed the fish then, so I stuck around on the phone to hear how everythings doing. He walked in and everything but the pleco was dead, and the tank was cloudy and stunk. I said oh well, I'll be home later today see ya then. When I finally get home, I did a little research and found out that the air strip was turned off the first or second day and never turned back on, and for some reason the canister filter switch was in the off position. So the fish pretty much mucked up the water, and with no air and filtration, suffocated to death... I'm kinda pissed.

Sorry had to vent a little. I don't think its cool to confront him because the quickness I had to leave, and he was really unprepared... but at the same time ahhhhhhh!!! I wish I bought an auto feeder, but I figured they were in good hands....
 
Wow, that's terrible... you just can't trust people to take care of your aquarium. I've heard of too many stories like this.
 
The quickness you had to leave in had nothing to do with the guy fiddling with your hardware. If nothing more, I think you deserve an answer as to why he turned off the hardware.
 
Yeah, I agree... if you don't know how something works leave it alone.
 
yeah i agree with the hardware comment, cant figure it out myself, i'm sure eventually i'll find out the details, havent talked much since i got dropped off midnight last night... just kinda bummed, the cichlids were brand new, i didn't have much connection to them... but the catfish I spent at least 7 months making their home, really liked them, and they grow sooo slow, just found a nice auction on AB thofor a bunch more, so although they wont be the same ones, i wont be catfish-less for long...
 
well he didnt know abou the co2, so that explains why he didnt know the oxygen had to be on... but still

and about the leaving them a week, the cichlids i just bought the day before, and the lfs i get them from just got them shipped in a day before i bought them, so they were in need of attention, or else i woulda tossed in a vacation food disk...

just aggroed... was kinda forced into this whole trip, and i knew it was a bad idea the whole time

another thing, found a few fish in the tank when cleaning up, and they were pretty well rotted... my sleuthing skills tell me they didnt die the morning i came home...
 
on the bright side tho, the 30 gallon is still awesome, all fish survived and look great, and also right now the orange poso snails seem to be doing the "fun dance" right now lol! and in the exterminated tank I found 2 baby assassin snails...
 
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