Extended Trip - What To Do?

I'm travelling to California where I will be gone from my home in New York for a month. Because I do RODI water with supplements, my wife really doesn't know how to handle water changes. I am now doing large water changes in all of my tanks before I leave and advised her to feed every two days very lightly.

Are my fish going to be ok?

Stock:

75gallon - 2 angels, 2 gbr, 1 juvenile jurupari, 2 juvenile blood parrots, 1 chocolate zebra pleco
36 Gallon - 5 otos, 1 Sunset Thicklip Gourami, 3 apisto inca
20 gallon long - 9 cory cats (albino and sterbai), 1 dwarf gourami, 2 golden zebra danios (left over stock)
10 gallon - 2 dwarf puffers

 

If she's going to be feeding as much as/less than you normally feed them, ammonia and nitrites aren't going to be the issue in a cycled tank. What you're going to have to watch out for is nitrates. How often do you normally do water changes, and how high do nitrates normally get between them? Do you have live plants in the tanks? If not, you could get some low-maintenance plants such as java fern and anubias to help out with nitrate levels. I don't use RODI so I don't know how the supplements work though.

 

She's going to be feeding less. I do have live plants in all my tanks except the 20 gallon long. Nitrates usually are around 5ppm after a weekly water change.

oh, and the supplements are simply for GH, KH and PH. These are well cycled tanks, all are running 10 months to over a year. I do use Seachem Flourish line for the plants, but not using it just makes them grow slower. I'm going to set the lights on a timer before I go to make sure I don't come back to an algae mess.

 

I think you'll be fine. 5 nitrates by each water change x about a month/4 weeks means you'll still be well within the safe parameters by the time you get back, especially if she's feeding less, and since your tanks are all well-cycled and the water in them isn't going to change you won't have to worry about sudden changes in water parameters.

 

Instead of telling her to feed lightly, get pillboxes, plastic cups, or ziploc bags and portion out how much you want her to feed them for each feeding, then hide the rest of the food. Everyone's definition of lightly will differ slightly.

 

I'm going to run into this too when I ditch for a month. I think the pill boxes idea is good because my roommate is a major overfeeder whenever I've asked him to do so in the past. As far as water changes, you should be OK if you're at 5 ppm or less after a week.

 

How bad is your tap? Would she be able to do one water change while you're gone with tap water?

 

How bad is your tap? Would she be able to do one water change while you're gone with tap water?

Very hard (8.6). 10ppm nitrates. Lead. That's why I do RODI. I'm pre-measuring out equilibrium, acid and alkaline buffers. Going to see if I can get someone to help.

 

Darn. If it didn't have lead, I'd say one or two small water changes should be fine.

 

Pay a local fish store to do a change at 2 weeks. Not PetSmart lol

 

You could get a big barrel and prep the water for her to do the WC's in advance. And then just set up a small spongefilter in the barrel just ot keep the water moving.