Ibiza Rocks! (algae doesn't)

[Martin]

Summer is fast approaching and 2 weeks of sun, sand, sea and ......sangria in Ibiza beckons 😀 ,but the question is what do you do with your tanks when you are on your hols? Now, my friends , family or neighbours don't have the slightest clue when it comes to looking after planted tanks (shush now, I can hear you whispering over the Interweb, "Neither do you!"), so apart from bribing one of you guys to come and look after them, what do you do? Option 1. Give chosen victim a crash course in all that is involved in maintaining the tanks and their inhabitants to the peak of perfection, including feeding, pruning,water changes etc. - this daunting proposition is too much to ask of anyone. Option 2. Purchase auto feeder for fish, forget about EI dosing for a fortnight, reduce 'lights on' and CO2 injection to 4/5 hours per day and keep fingers crossed that I don't return to a Championship winning algae haven! Option 3.Persuade said victim to feed fish and dose ferts. daily, forget about water changes but still reduce lighting and CO2. Option 4. Drastic measures, break down tanks and look forward to starting from scratch upon my return. (This is not really an option). OR Option 5. Don't go on holiday in the first place! Any suggestions from you guys will be gratefully received, so, what do you do?

 

[Egmel]

I do option 3 but rarely go away for longer that a few days.

If you've got time before you leave you can do a test run and see what happens if you dose everything as normal and miss a water change. If it all looks ok then all you need to do is get said victim to feed/dose, you can even make up bottles of liquid feeds with dates written on them if you think it would be easier for them 😉

One thing to teach your victim is not to overfeed the fish. Fish always look hungry and you need to explain to them that it's better to under feed while you're away than over feed.

I left my housemate in charge of my tank when I went away for 2 weeks, it was pre-planting though so he only had to worry about feeding. When I came back there were post-it notes all over the house saying 'FEED FISH!' He was paranoid I was going to come home to a tank of floaters 😉 (though I'd already told him that if he saw a dead fish to remove it wrap it in newspaper, bin it and not to try replacing it!)

 

[LondonDragon]

I usually go away for 2 weeks sometimes even 3 weeks, and what I did is leave everything the same and just ask my sister to dose TPN+ every other day and feed the fish every other day, always worked pretty well, just when I come back I always have to prune the jungle that I always find. lol

 

[John Starkey]

Hi all, i trained my son now he is nearly as good as me,seriously i showed him how to do things and he never has a problem,But the main things i do is feed just once mid week while i am away,and i reduce the lighting by two hrs,works for me but we never go away for more than a week,regards john.

 

[Lisa_Perry75]

I've been so busy at uni and rubbish going on in my life I have left my tank for about 2 weeks with nothing added, no reduction in light and only fed the fish a few times. I am playing with fire, but tbh I really couldn't care less somebody wake me up when its all over!!!

 

[nickyc]

We did a version of option 3 last summer. We collected plastic water bottles and filled them with water and the requisite liquids - more so for the marine set up. Tried to keep food simple too - click food rather than live. I gave my tank a drastic haircut before I left. Returned to some algae but not too much - that said, mine was very low tech then and the marine had algae on the glass that we've never been able to get rid of.

Will be interested to see how others get round this!

 

[Martin]

A drastic 'haircut' before I go is a good idea. I want to make it as simple as possible for my tank sitter, so feeding fish every other day seems like a good plan. Rather than expecting them to dose ferts every day I think I'll mix up a few bottles so that the tanks can be dosed maybe twice a week. Reduce lighting to 5/6 hours along with co2, and keep my fingers crossed during the fortnight I'm away!