3 Weeks w/o seeing my tank! (Post-Holiday Cleanup!)

Oh gosh I'm so scared!
I've been away for three weeks. THREE. I've left my good friend to take care of my fish, she fed them every three days - which is fantastic imo because I recently converted her from a 1G bowl with two 12 year old commets to a 50 Gal for both of them!- I leave for home tomorrow on a 6+ Hour drive. And when I'm home I'll be doing a 50+, maybe 80% water change. According to her its overrun with BGA so that's fun. One of my T8's stopped working to so that's something new to buy And on top of that, the guppies gave birth (*sigh*, again) and my baby BN Pleco has been missing for two weeks. The algae wafers are rated every time, but I'm pretty sure if my Pleco isn't around the guppies are eating that for him. I'm so worried for my tank. I will post photos tomorrow, pre and post clean up! But this is what my tank looked like before a water change just BEFORE I left:

Hopefully it isn't too bad tomorrow - but I guess future me can deal with that!

 

I'm in the same boat - but I've been away over a month and I won't be home for another week My friend taking care of my tanks is way more knowledgeable and experienced than me, but she doesn't have time to do the deep cleaning I like to do. Even though we have work to do when we get back, it's amazing how excited we can be about taking care of them again!

 

I know right?! That tank hasn't seen a water change in three weeks though... oh lord i'm both excited and petrified!

 

I had that breeder net once. I had guppies get stuck behind it. Maybe the pleco is there

 

Alright so... I came home to uh.. I don't even know what to call this:

Algae. Everywhere.
There were SO many guppies. Around 20 new guppies in addition to the 21 guppies I already have (about a month old). A trip to the LFS is in order!

There is just horrible sheets of BGA covering everything.


And this was my Nano, with no fish. It wasn't bad at all - just a lot of gaseous build up in the sand



And uh, a LOT of evaporation



Its time to clean! *Dons cleaning bandana and grabs buckets*