I hate vacations ><

[LittleNami]

Well, shouldn't say that, I love vacations in fact, I just hate coming home to what people might have done in their attempt to "babysit" my fish.

So yeah, just got back from house sitting for my brother and his wife for 2 days, gave my mother written instructions to care for my tank, which consisted of just turning on the light, feeding the fish, and turning off the light at 8-10 hours. I didn't dare tell her of Pavlushka, my snake, so I expected she would be a little feral when I got home, no problems there.

My tank, however, didn't seem to take kindly to my close attention being missed. Came back to find the substrate nearly covered in hair algae, or at least that is what I think it is, and several clumps of it developing. the stuff was growing faster than my moss!

So I tried to clean it out as best as possible, removing the clumps and scrubbing down my tank, emptying out some of the water. But there is still a lot of it in there. How could there have been such a growth of this algae and what can I do to keep what remains from spreading like this again?

 

[ringfinger]

I would be willing to bet that over feeding is what caused your algae problem. People without fish experience always seem to think that fish need 10 times more food than is necessary. Just remove the algae you can and go back to whatever routine was working before. Shouldn't be a long term problem assuming that you had everything well under control before your vacation. Any previous algae problems? How old is the tank?

I could be wrong, but I think I have read several times on this site that fish can easily go up to 4 days without feeding. That could save you some trouble right there...or you could give your mom another short lesson on what a "pinch" of fish food means.

 

[gfink]

I give them a measuring soon. Something like 1/4 tsp. This way they can't make huge mistakes.

 

[Alshain]

Do a gravel vac and get whatever excess food out of the water. Then resume your normal feeding patterns and tank care. The algae will starve out after a while.

 

[Tong]

Electronic timers are great! I never worry about when my lights turn on and off. I was also gone this weekend and it has been one of the hottest days of the summer so I also had a box fan on a timer. If only there was a good and reliable automatic feeder....

 

[LittleNami]

Oooh, thanks for the responses ^^ I never thought of a measuring spoon to help people out with how much to use. The only past problems I had with algae was a minor spotting of some along the walls of the tank, but it never got bigger than the size of a business card really, so the hair algae overgrowth was a little shocking to say the least.

Yeah, I'm hoping that with my next paycheck I can get a timer set, that way it takes out most of the issues of when to turn the darn light on and off and people's confusion that the button on the top is no longer the on off switch, its the black box below. Oi, never thought I'd have so many issues with new equipment and people >< Actually, I thought once I came across an auto feeder. Maybe that was in my dreams ^^

 

[Tong]

I just remembered this. I good idea when having someone feed your fish is to get those medicine taking containers. The one that has the little boxes for saturday, monday, tuesday, etc. You simply put in what you want fed each day and then HIDE the rest of your fish food.

 

[Alshain]

Unless its a really long vacation, you could just not feed your fish and put your lights on a timer. I almost never take vacations more than 1 week at a time and fish will be fine without food for that long.

 

[dnaelting]

Last year we went on a 2 week vacation and I had to have my brother feed the fish. I went to Walgreens and bought a pill minder box that had 4 rows of boxes for each of the seven days of the week. I measured the food and put it in each box. All he had to do was open the first box in the am, the second box in the pm and so on for the week. Then the next week he opened the third in the am and the forth in the pm. The fish got exactly the feeding they needed and did not get overfed. I even told him to skip a day or two while we were gone.

Worked great and avoided the overfeeding problem.

 

[Wood_Dog]

Thats all well and good, but my mother-in -law always sees how quick the fish eat their food and the gives them more, always....no matter what we say or how often she does it, Currently looking for another fish sitter,lol