fingers crossed (and toes too)

[FishLover]

I'm scheduled for a 5 weeks vacation next day. I just did a huge water change (40% first, top up, then another 40%, top up again, then another 40%, I think that's about 80% of W/C) to the Discus tank. Cleaned up the filters (the bio media were not touched). Set up the auto feeder. Everything else ii on timmer anyway. I'm going to watch everything for the next 24 hours and make sure everything is OK

Hope they will be OK when I come back

Before you say there are other options, believe, none of them is possible. I would not trust anyone to change the water, nor it is possible to have the LFS take care of them for me. What else can I do? I can't take them on vacation with me, can I? I guess they will just have to tough it out on this one.

Tank details:
125 g
ph 6.98
temp 86f
dh/kh ??
11 3" discus
4 ottos,
3 corys
1 zibra loach
lightly planted

[Merrilyn]

Good luck fishlover. It's not the ideal situation, but I think you have done as much as you possibly can under the circumstances.

I've got my fingers crossed for you too. :P

[FishLover]

I came back yesterday morning and all 11 of my Discus are OK!

They looked a bit slim but they are all fine. It looks like they did not grow much at all but as long as they are fine, I'm OK with that. I did a 40% WC and feed them some BW. They are active and eating fast.

I will be baek to normal WC schedules

[sammigold]

That is great to hear!!!!! Hope you had a good time away!..

[Phlipper]

That's a good bit of information, it's good to hear that although not ideal, Discus can survive a lengthy period without water changes and maintenance. Did you set your automatic feeder to dose food daily or every couple of days ?

[FishLover]

I changed 40% of water 2 days before vacation, then another 40% next day. I think that means I changed about 70% of water in two days. I also put in a bag nitra-zorb in there to remove the nitra.

The lights were set for 10 hours per day, with moonlights came 1 hour before and after the main lights.

The auto feeder were set to dose small amount of food twice a day.

Hope that helps.

BTW, I had a great time. 5 weeks seems long but it was short for me. No more vacation days left for the whole year. :=(

[Phlipper]

The nitra-zorb was good thinking, I'm always a little concerned leaving my fish for more than a week, glad yours survived it well

Vacations, hate it when they end