Going abroad

I'll be going abroad in a few months and I'm so worried about my fish, only person to care for them will be my mum but she used to have a tank and only done water changes twice a year, is there anything I can do to help them survive that 3 month period I'll be gone? She will feed them daily so foods not an issue, just worried about the water quality. Should I add more plants?

 

Can you ask her to do weekly water changes? At the very least bi-weekly water changes? I would probably have her feed once every other day so the ammonia doesn't climb as quickly in case she can't do water changes as frequently as you'd like.

Plants would definitely help. I would stick with low-tech low light plants like wisteria, water sprite and moss balls so there won't be anything required for her to do for the plants.

 

Can you ask her to do weekly water changes? At the very least bi-weekly water changes? I would probably have her feed once every other day so the ammonia doesn't climb as quickly in case she can't do water changes as frequently as you'd like.

Plants would definitely help. I would stick with low-tech low light plants like wisteria, water sprite and moss balls so there won't be anything required for her to do for the plants.

She is against changing the water because "it will stress the fish" No matter how many times I explain the nitrogen cycle, tanks already got 6 live plants that are no maintenance, bought some frogbit and straight vallis, plus extra filter media for this. I'll make sure she feeds only one every two days as that's actually something I didn't think of

 

Can you lie to your mum and say there's a special wild-caught exotic fish in the tank that needs weekly water changes to survive?

Also, where are you? There should be a pet sitter organization in your area you could hire for 3 visits I've actually done that. There was someone home to feed the fish but she couldn't do water changes so I came in to help

 

I wouldn't lie, especially to your mom. How about getting her an account on here so she can get direct advice and understand why she'll need to at least do biweekly changes. Get more plants, up your filtration, you can make a canister filter for around $50. Or hire someone like Aquaphobia said.

 

I would...

Anyway, it's a choice of evils to my mind. Either lie to your mother to protect her feelings, or prove to her that she's wrong. If it were me, I would just hire someone to do the water changes and let her do the rest.

 

I would...

Anyway, it's a choice of evils to my mind. Either lie to your mother to protect her feelings, or prove to her that she's wrong. If it were me, I would just hire someone to do the water changes and let her do the rest.

Yeah there's nothing like That round here, unless you hire someone off Gumtree who says they'll be an animal sitter, but most of them wouldn't even bother taking out a dead fish considering they're 14 year olds tryna get money for booze. That or they'd be adding random to tank to see if the fish would eat it. And there's no way I could lie about that, I'm from Scotland, closest thing we have to a sun are sunflowers , I'll just keep tryna show her why it's important and , added 5 prices of frogbit and extra ceramic media should be here Wednesday, along with 10 peices of Straight Valis. I could try build a canister filter, any link to DIY it? That or I could modify my internal filter somehow (any ideas), running Juwel Bioflow 3.0 H, 600L/hr currently. Also have an old Fluval U1 in the cupboard I could add and a Marina i110 I could add.

 

What about adding some denitrification media to that extra filter?

There are canister filter tutorials on YouTube

 

Here's the canister filter video

Yeah I wouldn't trust a pet sitter unless you either new them or they said they where very knowledgable in fish and proved it to you. Who knows though, you might be able to ask the people at your LFS and LPS and see if they'd be willing to make an extra buck. Just make sure your mom is home when they are, just as a deterrent for stealing unless you trust them.

 

Aquaphobia If you look up either of those filters they really don't have any space for extra media, Platylover LPS is absolute , told me so much bull about Bettas and Minnows, they only care about Making a sale. They definitely wouldn't look after my tank, and if you saw the state of theirs you wouldn't want them "looking after" your own either

 

Made a small filter with Filter wool, clean shower gel bottle and airstones, gonna buy Extra media and throw that in aswell, also gonna watch that tutorial you linked, Thanks for the advice both of you

 

I would sell/trade your stock off and start over when you get back instead of relying on someone to take care of your fish for 3 months.

 

Update: after a long talk with an employee at an actually decent pet store, he explained to my mum why she should have changed the water more frequently and you could see it in his eyes that he was furious about not changing water more than twice a year. Pretty sure she's learned the lesson about water quality as she was told about the nitrogen cycle and handed 5 different booklets titled "Beginners guide to maintaining an aquarium", "The importance of water quality" and a few various other ones. hopefully this will have opened her eyes. Still gonna have her feed them on a bi-daily basis though as I don't want any major problems happening when I'm gone.

 

Hello. I'm glad that you found a knowledgeable person to explain things to your Mom. Let's all hope that she takes the time to read and understand how important water changes are.
What I would like to suggest is that your Mom feeds your fish once every four days, or maybe once a week. This is bases on if your Mom doesn't do the weekly water changes.

 

Hello. I'm glad that you found a knowledgeable person to explain things to your Mom. Let's all hope that she takes the time to read and understand how important water changes are.
What I would like to suggest is that your Mom feeds your fish once every four days, or maybe once a week. This is bases on if your Mom doesn't do the weekly water changes.

Here's hoping anyway, and yeah if she's going to do weekly water changes I'll have her feed every second day, and if it'll be every 2 weeks I'll have her feed every 4 days. Cheers for advice, what would be a good feeding shedule for her while I'm gone? Will not feeding for so long maybe make the fish become more territorial?

 

If your Mom enjoys looking at your fish, I would say she could feed them when she is just relaxing and watching them. This way she can make sure all food is ate, and everyone eats. I don't know what type of fish you have, but I don't believe they will be anymore territorial than normal. Hopefully other members can give you better info on that than I can.

 

One other piece of advice is to show her how you, feed, change the water, and get all debris in/off the substrate. This will be very important if she does infrequent water changes.

 

One other piece of advice is to show her how you, feed, change the water, and get all debris in/off the substrate. This will be very important if she does infrequent water changes.

I'll do that tomorrow as will be doing a water change after work anyway, cheers for the advice

 

Wow! Where is this amazing pet store?!

 

Wow! Where is this amazing pet store?!

It took me ages to find it, the one in my town, the next town over, and the third closest town are all , it's about 40 miles from my house but it's worth it. The aquatic section is managed By Maidenhead Aquatics so give them a quick search and see if you have anything locally.

Wow! Where is this amazing pet store?!

It took me ages to find it, the one in my town, the next town over, and the third closest town are all , it's about 40 miles from my house but it's worth it. It's managed by

 

Alas, I am outside the UK

 

Alas, I am outside the UK

Ah that's a shame, they're really good and actually care about what they sell