Going On Vacation...question About Lights

[Scates11]

My girlfriend and I are going out of town for the holiday, we will be gone for a total of 4 days. I have a timer for my lights but it just stopped working on my about an hour ago. I dont have time to get a new one, we are leaving from work tomorrow and will not be home.

Is it ok to leave the light off for the full 4 days, I have a friend coming over to feed the fish and the cat daily but I am worried about the light. I have no live plants so it is just fish, the tank gets about 6 hours of natural light each day (not direct light) so I am hoping that will be sufficient.

Another concern is my tank is still fairly early in it's cycle (I am one of the dummies that did my research to late so I am stuck with a fish-in cycle). I did a large water change today and my ammonia levels are .25 no trace of nitrites yet. Not much I can do about this part I will just test the water as soon as I get home and hope the fish make it while we are away.

Thanks for any advice everyone has been super helpful so far and I have learned a ton!

 

[Chad]

Yes, it's fine. You have no plants to worry about and the fish will just see it as 4 cloudy days.

 

[Nightfall]

The fish will be fine, but if you have live plants in there they probably won't be. It depends on the plants, though.

During a heatwave a couple of weeks ago I turned off the lights in my Gourami tank because it was reaching temperatures of 84F/30F without the heater being turned on and the light was contributing to the heat. It was heavily planted with Foxtail, Bacopa, Duckweed and Pennywort. So heavily planted, in fact, that it was almost overgrown. I had the lights off for 48 hours and when I turned them back on again EVERYTHING but the Duckweed was completely dead from lack of light. I went from having an overgrown tank to only having a tiny stalk of Hygrophilia and the duckweed. Literally everything else had gone from lush, green and healthy to brown and dead in that time. I had to do a 100% water change and vacuum to clean up all the debris.

Hairgrass and Anubius are also very sensitive to light. In the 2 days I turned off the lights in my 7g tank the hairgrass went from being thick, lush and green to having yellowed/browned dramatically in the middle. I had to do a severe trim to rid it off the dead matter and to encourage it to regrow. My Anubiases were saved, but they had yellowed pretty badly too.

Those are all very popular aquarium plants and if you're using live plants chances are you've got some of them growing. Duckweed and Java moss will do fine for several days without light (mine did), but they're extremely hardy and low-light plants.

 

[Scates11]

No live plants just the fish but good information, my next tank will be bigger and planted so this helps for future issues i may have. Thank you

 

[the_lock_man]

Much more of a concern is the lack of biological filtration. You need to do a massive waterchange, as close to 100% as you can get, as late as you can before you leave. Just leave enough room for the fish to swim upright in.

 

[deftuch]

letting your neighbour feed your fish is a risky thing to do, overfeeding is a real danger. when i went on holiday for two weeks i left out seal bags with the food already in. all my friend had to do was tip the food in, simple

 

[bmonki]

if you are in the middle of a fish in cycle i wouldnt be getting anyone to feed them... the more food they consume the more they poo the more ammonia goes up. afaik fish will be completely fine going 4 days without food and it'll slow down the ammonia being produced so hopefully fewer or no deaths while you are gone. If you feed them the morning b efore u go, then do massive water change literally just before u leave (couple of hours after feeding i would think) and then just leave the tank til you return.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I second the recommendation not to have the fish fed while you are away. They will be just fine without any food, and the ammonia levels will be lower as a result. You could have your neighbor add a few drops (depending on the size of your tank) of Prime or Stress Coat, which will detoxify the ammonia/nitrite until you return.


Also, when having a neighbor, etc. feed your fish, to eliminate the possibility of overfeeding, I always leave a prescription pill box like the one pictured below with premeasured food in each day so that they don't overfeed in my absence. Most fishkeepers overfeed, so the odds that a non-fish person will overfeed are that much greater.

 

[Chad]

Most certainly you should feed the fish! I was just thinking about the lights. The pill box shown above is exactly what I do when I go on vacation.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

In most cases, I would agree with you tcamos. But in this case, he will only be gone for 4 days, and he is still dealing with ammonia. 4 days is nothing for the fish to go without food. They could easily go a full week without food and suffer no ill effects. I don't leave my fish for that long without food, but they would be fine. I routinely leave my fish for 3 day weekends and never worry about feeding them while away. In fact, even when I am home, I still routinely fast them once or twice a week.


In this case with the ammonia still lingering, the food will just exacerbate the issue, especially since the person coming in probably won't be doing any testing of the water, nor changing of the water. I think having them feed the fish just offers an unnecessary risk. The risk with adding no food is nearly null. The fish will be just fine. ;-)

 

[Scates11]

Wow this is all extremely helpful! I will have him not feed the fish that will be better. I hope the fish make it, I did about a 60% water change last night and I will not be home again untill Tuesday around noon. Read the close to 100% water change a little to late, hate to say it but all i can do now is hope for the best and have my buddy put a little stress coat in on Sunday...speaking of stress coat when you are doing water changes can you use to much of it, I always put just a little more than the recomended amount?

 

[Chad]

In most cases, I would agree with you tcamos. But in this case, he will only be gone for 4 days, and he is still dealing with ammonia. 4 days is nothing for the fish to go without food. They could easily go a full week without food and suffer no ill effects. I don't leave my fish for that long without food, but they would be fine. I routinely leave my fish for 3 day weekends and never worry about feeding them while away. In fact, even when I am home, I still routinely fast them once or twice a week.


In this case with the ammonia still lingering, the food will just exacerbate the issue, especially since the person coming in probably won't be doing any testing of the water, nor changing of the water. I think having them feed the fish just offers an unnecessary risk. The risk with adding no food is nearly null. The fish will be just fine. ;-)

Probably so. I did miss the part about the ammonia. I would say it also depends on the fish. For me I have planktonivors that need to eat often so even missing a day has them annoyed with me.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

tcamos,

What are your fish?



Scates,

To answer the question regarding the overdosing of stress coat... you can easily add twice the necessary amount for the amount of water you are adding with no ill effect. When doing a water change, I always add the amount for my entire tank of water to the tank directly to the tank. In general, I'm sure that you can add too much, but I've never heard of anyone actually overdosing with it to ill effects.

 

[Chad]

The 210 gallon reef tank has:

1 Yellow tang
1 Kole tang
1 bicolor blenny
1 blackfin shrimp goby
2 yellow clown goby
1 panda clown goby
1 purple dottyback
1 orchid dottyback
2 A. ocellaris clowns
3 yellow tail blue damsel
5 green chromis
1 blue reef chromis
5 lyretail anthias
2 Lubbock's fairy wrasse

I've looking for something else to add but haven't found the right fish just yet.

The FW tank has 8 chili rasbora and 2 scarlet badis which are each fish that like their daily meals as well as the cherry shrimp. I also have a tank with 5 pygmy cory.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Nice fish. I'd love to see a pic of the reef tank.