Going Home For Christmas

[PhishyPhriend]

My problem is this, I'm going home for Christmas and ordinarily I would only be gone for less than 2 weeks, and I feel OK leaving Artemis alone for that long, however, my mum is having surgery in January and needs me to be there so I'll be gone for about a month. It's a 5 hour drive to where she lives, it's bitterly cold out, and last time I brought my fish home for a visit he ended up with dropsy and had to be euthanized.

Would he be OK alone for a month? Should I get him one of those automatic feeders?

Any advice would be wonderful.

 

[KittyKat]

Can you get a friend to look after him?

What caused the dropsy? Did you let the previous one chill while in transport? In theory, you should not have a problem taking him if you pack him well enough.. after all, I managed to take some of my fish on a 1000 mile trip over two days when it was -15°C outside without a problem: just stocked up on heatpacks and fish boxes before going.

 

[PhishyPhriend]

Can you get a friend to look after him?

What caused the dropsy? Did you let the previous one chill while in transport? In theory, you should not have a problem taking him if you pack him well enough.. after all, I managed to take some of my fish on a 1000 mile trip over two days when it was -15°C outside without a problem: just stocked up on heatpacks and fish boxes before going.

I can't really get a friend in, as most of them are also going home for the holidays.

We don't really know what caused the dropsy, he was transported in the summer, so he didn't get a chill. It was just really traumatic with Fish Fish.

What kind of heatpacks? and what are fish boxes?

 

[KittyKat]

Almost any heatpack is fine, after all, they go on the outside of the fish bag.. I normally buy mine from a pharmacy or online.. they are often marketed for back pain. Fish boxes are what I call polystyrene boxes which are used for transporting fish.. they work in the same way as a cool box (i.e. keep the water temperature almost the same by not letting heat out.

 

[GuppyGoddess]

Hi,
Two of my bettas were left for three weeks and a family member fed them for me. The one part I didn't think about was that the water evaporates over time, so even though she fed them, she didn't keep the tanks topped off and about 2 1/2 inches of the water was gone!!! This was during the warmer part of the year, though, so I would guess that makes a difference.