Fish Sitting

[isu_guy]

Question: If you were to be away for a long time and chose to use a fish store to "fish sit" for you, at what point do you need to worry about your tank needing to recycle?

My situation: I'm a college student and be gone for 3 weeks during winter break, I doubt I can manage to find anyone to tend my fish over the 3 weeks besides one of the local fish stores. If I leave my tank running with no ammonia source for 3 weeks, won't most of the bacteria die off?

What have you all done?

 

[Teelie]

For 3 weeks, you could leave the fish in their aquarium and they should be fine, though if you want to, you can buy a mechanical feeder (not a weekend feeder that sits in the water) and set it to feed every 2-4 days.

The water will last that long and the fish can tolerate the small rise in ammonia or nitrites unless they're particularly sensitive fish.

 

[FrankSlapperinni]

What type of fish do you have. and how big of a tank is it? In most cases, your fish should be fine while you are gone, just make do a large water change before you leave, and feed them the day before you do the change. This way, most of the wast will be out of your fish's systems by the time you change the water, and they should not pollute the tank as much while you are gone.

 

[Joviella]

I completely agree that it depends on what fish you have as to whether you can leave them or not.........

 

[isu_guy]

I have a black ghost knife and a sailfin pleco and a platy

 

[SirMinion]

Bung some apple snails in there. They'll keep the tank cycled.

 

[Discomafia]

how so? what's the explanation behind this?

 

[Teelie]

Snails produce waste. A very low amount of it, but enough to keep a tank cycled.