Leaving For 15 Days.

Hello all. I'm going to be visiting family in Michigan for 15 days. I have a 55 gallon tank. In preparation for leaving it for 15 days I did a 75% water change last night, I did a giant feeding last night and will do one more big feeding before I leave my place this afternoon. I've been feeding more often for the past week trying to fatten everyone up before I leave. I have my lights on a timer with a reduced photo period which will be from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. I dosed thrive for my plants last night to give them some ferts to live on while I'm gone. I've also added a small extra h.o.b. filter and have double checked that all my electrical wires are on a drip loop. Is that pretty much everything I can do to prepare? You think everyone will be fine for 15 days? My ammonia and nitrite levels stay in check but I'm worried about nitrates. They tend to climb pretty high if I miss a weekly water change.

 

I wouldn't do the massive feeding before you leave. You could lower the temp to slow metabolism too, but everything sounds good.

 

Good call^ Large feeding could just make potential nitrate issues worse. I'll drop the temp 2-3 degrees too.

 

I'm watching this topic to get ideas and see the results. 15 days is scary, best of luck to you!

 

Ideally you should have done a water change about 3-days prior to you leaving. Feed large, do water change and feed really light. The reason doing the WC 3 days prior is that you can fix any problems that might happen before you leave for vacation.

I wouldn't touch anything at all after that. Leave the tank alone and maybe just turn off the lights .