Vacation prep for 6 tanks

I’m going on vacation for a week next month. It’s the first vacation that I’ve had since I started really taking care of my tanks in early 2020, so I don’t really know what I should do for the fish to make sure they’re okay while I’m gone, especially since I haven’t missed a weekly water change in that time. Should I do a water change the day before I leave? Should I just miss a week? Normally I do water changes on Wednesdays, and I’ll be gone from one Saturday to the following Saturday. Mostly I just need to know if I should take time off work the day before I leave to do pre-vacation tank cleaning. Water changes for six tanks is an all-day task. XD
From what I can tell, most of my fish would be fine without food for a week. My only concern is for my small fish (neon tetras and—I think—guppy/Endlers) and my zebra danio and cory catfish in QT. The zebra and cory have been sitting there for 6+ months because I have terrible luck with zebra danios. The other danios that I got with them stopped eating and died, even though I’d been treating with PraziPro (which normally works for fish I’ve had with these symptoms), and now the remaining zebra and cory aren’t eating well. Here’s hoping that works itself out before I leave in a few weeks.

 

I'd just do your water changes as normal before you go, then catch up when you get back. No point in stressing yourself out doing water changes the day before if you don't have the time - the day before is for packing your bags! Missing a week's water changes won't harm your fish and your fish should be OK without food for the week too.

Most important thing of all - enjoy your break!

 

Neon tetras , endlers etc will be fine without food for more than a week.

Don’t go adding extra food as you walk out the door.
Having extra food will only make more waste.
10 days without a water change no problem.

I have gone 10 days without feeding my endlers neons and other small fish including juveniles.
Day old endlers will be fine. Small day old egg laying fish may not survive?

When you get back you may want to consider buying an electric pump , some hose and a couple of large bins on wheels to speed up water changes.

 

When you get back you may want to consider buying an electric pump , some hose and a couple of large bins on wheels to speed up water changes.

The electric pump really comes in handy for so many different tasks! I just bought one a couple weeks ago and now I couldn’t live without it! I can run the python to my 75 and do a water change on that and then use the little pump on my 15 to simultaneously do a water change on that tank. Super efficient! It also empties a tank you need to drain really fast! Right down to the bottom if you buy one that has a bottom rather than side water intake.

 

I would say the week before you go take your time each day and do a filter maintenance and check on each, just to be sure there's not going to be any filter issue on any of them while you are gone a hose or a connection worn or possibly failing, getting blocked up or prefilters that need to be cleaned out.

If you have power outages, and a filter on any of the tanks doesn't self prime and start working again when the power comes back on, it would be a good Idea to run a sponge filter on an airline for that tank in parallel to that filter even from now to get some bacteria into it so it can do something while you are gone if that situation occurs.

I've had that happen, power clipped for 10 seconds, filter was down for 12 hours and hot, water trapped in it cooked off and impeller warped and froze, trying to pump water back into it to run again and just couldn't, Just a mess, a dead filter and struggling fish when I got to it. I don't use hang on back filters anymore because of that among other reasons. 12 hours, it's savable, a few days like that it will really go downhill.

I'd make sure the filters on the tanks in general are in a good position to be left. and nothing concerning that might occur while you are away, just to be safe before going, maybe consolidate fish or run a redundant filter just in case if you find something you can't address and feel comfortable about leaving.


fish can be left for a week to 10 days without adding food, especially if well feed normally. They will pick at algae or something if they need to, mostly they will just take it easy and wait conserving energy for better times and easy food again. Wouldn't hurt if you run a heater for a higher temperature to turn it down a bit (still within the fish's range just on the low end of it, that will slow their metabolism some also, burning less energy, eating less and pooping less.

Sick or "off" fish might not make it, depends on how bad they were in the first place and how much they missed of eating, what their strength is. but I think most folks see something like that coming whether they are there or not. I would say MAYBEEE remove any questionable fish to a tank of their own, shift fish around, consolidate them there so if there is a die off it doesn't take out anything more than the sick/weak fish instead of dropping 1-2-3 tanks if they were spread out and a death occurs.