The Long Holiday Problem

[oldgreymonkey]

Hi Everyone,

With the holiday season approaching I'm sure I'm not the only one heading on a break for a while. My problem is I have no one to look after my aquarium while I'm gone, and we're talking 5-6 weeks.

If anyone has any advice or experience in such matters it would be appreciated.

Cheers
Adrian

[nicholas76]

This is when fellow mates in the hobby become so important. :D


I usually start doing more larger and frequent w/c leading up to the holiday away.

utilise a quality auto feeder if you can.

see if you can move them to a mates place, bribe your mate buy getting him a small tank that he can keep after you come back!

[Xtreme]

Hi,

Most LFS will board fish for you over the holidays, we do it, you are welcome to give us a call if you would like us to help you!

Cheers

Bec :wink:

[nicholas76]

aah awsum to know Bec!

[FishLover]

I went on vacation for about 5 weeks in March this year. It was not possible to have someone changing water and feeding my dischs. Here is what I did:

1. Change 50% of water daily 4 days leading to the vacation, a 70% wc a day before vacation, no ws the day I was leaving. Clean the filters one week or two before leaving. That way you can be sure the filters are function well.
2. Find a good auto feeder, and use the long life batteries, not the regular ones. That way you can be sure they don't run out on you. The feeder will feed them twice a day with small amount of food.
3. Right before vacation, put in something that can take out nitrate. I buy it from the shop. I just place the bag into the tank clost to the inlet of the filters (not too close, you don't want it sucked in and block the inlets, all you need is some water movement so it can remove the nitrates slowly)
4. I also have a back up UPS for my filters, just filters, not light or heaters. The UPS should protect me for at least 5 hours of power outage.
5. When I came home, the first thing I did wast 50% water change daily for the next few days to get the water under control.
6. I also had some plants in the tank (not much), I guess that helped a bit too.
7. All lights are on timers
8. I also had an UV installed. Not sure if you need it but I'm sure it helped.

When I came home after 5 weeks, all discus were fine, bit slim but nothing seriuos. The plants were really enjoying the nitrates.
Hope this helps.

[oldgreymonkey]

Thanks for the feedback,

I've been wanting to get a UV system so this may be a good excuse. Normally I would agree and mates would be the answer to the problem; but I left all of them in Victoria when I moved to NSW - still working on getting some new ones ;-).

If I decide the auto feeder option is no good, does anyone know an average price for fish boarding at the LFS??

[Merrilyn]

Your safest option is definately having your fish boarded at an aquarium shop. Give Xtreme a call and check prices.

Whatever it is, it's gotta be cheaper than coming home to a tank full of dead fish.

Leaving them on an automatic fish feeder is only an option if you have a very large tank and very few fish.

Five weeks is a long time for something to go wrong.

[oldgreymonkey]

Thanks, boarding does sound like the best option. I'll give xtreme a call. How about my plants, it's taken me a long time to get everything right, do you think they'd survive for a while with timed lights, filtration and CO2?

[Merrilyn]

I'm sure your plants would be just fine with the timed lighting and co2.

[Rgoganj]

Adrian,

Plants should be OK, just give them a good dose of fertz before you go.
(since no fishies will be around to provide fertz, unless you go with a dosing pump)

I had my 4ft planted tank survive 4 weeks with out to much trouble.
Some of the plants did look a little unhappy, but came good within a few days of TLC.
(But I did have 20 neon's in the tank at the time)

Hope this helps

[oldgreymonkey]

Thanks everyone, it doesn't look so hard after all.
Cheers