40 gallon Water Changes On Vacation?

I will be leaving for 7 days tomorrow and have arranged for someone to come every other day to feed my fish. My 40 gallon community tank is relatively new but fully cycled with nitrates always around 5.0. I do large water changes every other day, though, as I was getting nitrite readings up until about a week ago. Should I try to have the person do a wc while I'm gone? I'm worried they won't do it correctly. Will telling them to treat the tank with prime help? Also, how many times should I have them fed to minimize high nitrates?

 

Depending on the species and age of the fish, you might be able to get away with feeding just 1-2 times or not at all.

Few feedings means less waste so the nitrates will stay low.

All my tanks went for a week w/o feeding before and they were quite alright.

 

If you have adult fish, the safest approach is not to feed them for the week. If you have plants, they will find micro-organisms to tide them over. They can go 2-3 weeks without food - nature is not always bountiful.
But friends who feed your fish have a way of killing them with kindness.

 

Put 2 or 3 plastic ziplock bags with the amount you feed each day. Have them come over every other day to feed. Just tell them to empty one bag into tank. Fish will get enough food and you don't worry about overfeeding.

 

Is there a higher level of aggression when they are fed less often? My danios are pretty wild and I don't want them to begin picking on other fish/shrimp.

As for the amount, I have one of those week-long pill containers for all my tanks that I use to portion out food.

 

The pill containers are a good idea. I usually use zip locks but that's a better idea. I believe if the species is non aggressive it shouldn't attack others missing one day of food. Most of us overfeed anyway so missing a day shouldn't matter.