First time leaving my fish for vacation- advice please!

My mom and I are doing a test-run of our move across the country, and driving from Alberta to Ontario to check out houses. We'll be gone between 10 days and 2 weeks. Normally, my mom will look after my creatures if I go away, but I have to leave them in the hands of my.... very well meaning dad. I'm especially nervous because I'm dealing with a mild case of fin rot in my betta right now and have been doing 20% WCs every other day. I really can't ask my dad to do water changes in the conventional manner.
So tank #1- 10 gallon planted blackwater tank with 7 pygmy cories, 1 male betta, some cherry shrimp, some assassin snails, and some assassin snail food (pond snails).
Tank #2- 5 gallon cherry shrimp planted blackwater tank.
I'm not too worried about #2, I normally only do small water changes every week so I think I can just let that be completely, and maybe get my dad to throw in an algae wafer once while I'm gone. Tank #1 is my worry. I'm nervous about going that long with no food at all, but maybe that's the best bet. I'm wondering if it makes sense to fill up a 5 gallon bucket of water and get it conditioned and ready to go, and get my dad to take a cup or two out every day and replace it with water from the fresh bucket. Is this useless? I'm not sure. It would be stressful enough if I wasn't dealing with a bout of fin rot Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
Oh, current params in both tanks are 0/0/10-20 (somewhere in between) and are fully cycled.

 

fish can go with out food for 2 weeks i would do a water change before u go

 

I travel rather frequently, so I leave my fish alone all the time. Like johnbetta said, do a water change on both tanks before you go. Throwing in an algae wafer every once in a while sounds like a good idea. IMO, the bucket thing you said sounds like a good idea. Your dad could actually do more than a few cups if it's not too much hassle. As for food, if you don't necessarily ... trust him, you could buy a weekly pill organizer and put in how much food your fish need for every day. Good luck! Ask more questions if you need to!

 

I would probably have your dad do the cup water changes. It is probably useless but I would feel better knowing that at least a tiny bit of fresh water was getting in his tank.

 

I travel rather frequently, so I leave my fish alone all the time. Like johnbetta said, do a water change on both tanks before you go. Throwing in an algae wafer every once in a while sounds like a good idea. IMO, the bucket thing you said sounds like a good idea. Your dad could actually do more than a few cups if it's not too much hassle. As for food, if you don't necessarily ... trust him, you could buy a weekly pill organizer and put in how much food your fish need for every day. Good luck! Ask more questions if you need to!

thanks! Yes I'm definitely gonna use a pill organizer or baggies with dates on them if I decide to get him to feed. Last year, I went to California for a month, and my dad took care of my guppies for me. When I came back, there was a nice layer of fish food covering all the gravel, and a lot of dead guppies... Amazingly, a few survived that original incident, but I think they had ammonia poisoning because they died shortly after..

 

I wouldn’t have him feed them much, if at all. It would just be once every few days if he does feed them, and like someone already said, pre-measure the amount for him. I’d probably go a week without food, feed once, and then not feed again just personal preference. Not sure how much the 5 gallon bucket would do for them. Maybe if he could use it to do one gallon water changes every few days?

 

Your biggest risk is an ammonia spike from overfeeding and not changing water. The more you back off on feeding while you're away the safer your fish will be. I agree with above to maybe have a small amount of food put in once or twice while you're gone. Ammonia levels are based on how much food you put into the tank. Back off on feeding and ammonia will drop accordingly while you're gone.

 

I have gone 8 nights without food even little endler guppy fry were ok . So perhaps 14 days is possible?
i would hide the fish food from dad . With a VERY small glass of food . Enough for one day and say that’s all you want him to feed.

I am sure you can ask him to remove a few cups of water and replace it.

 

When my kids are home and I'm away they are pretty good at it. When we all go I have a housesitter; I portion out each tanks dry food in old contact lens cases. I stack the cases on the appropriate tanks before I leave. I'm likely going to upgrade that system to pill minders eventually.

 

I have gone 8 nights without food even little endler guppy fry were ok . So perhaps 14 days is possible?
i would hide the fish food from dad . With a VERY small glass of food . Enough for one day and say that’s all you want him to feed.

I am sure you can ask him to remove a few cups of water and replace it.

I wonder do you have live plants or driftwood? I know my fish will eat the dying plant matter and pick at driftwood things that naturally happens in the planted tank, which would be plenty of food for a little endler guppy to survive on. I wouldn’t go so long not feeding a little tiny fish like that if everything in the tank was fake

 

I wonder do you have live plants or driftwood? I know my fish will eat the dying plant matter and pick at driftwood things that naturally happens in the planted tank, which would be plenty of food for a little endler guppy to survive on. I wouldn’t go so long not feeding a little tiny fish like that if everything in the tank was fake

I do have both plants and driftwood! I think I will set out two small meals for the time I’m gone. Thanks so much everyone!