In case anyone else is leaving home for days

[itZme]

Hi,
We are going to Florida for 10 days. We're leaving Tuesday afternoon. My daughter is 12 yrs old and I have one of her friends coming over to feed our fish/snails/crabs/frogs etc... for a couple bucks a day.

I came up with an idea to make it easy for a 12 yr old girl to feed the right food to the right tank. I have searched the forum and couldn't find anyone else ever posting about this so I thought I'd let you all know.

I went to Wal-Mart and bought the medicine organizers that people use when they have daily meds and you fill each day with your pills and setup the whole week in advance. They are 98 cents each. I have filled each of the compartments with the proper food for each day and then numbered each pill box with a Sharpie and each aquarium with corresponding numbers on a pc. of painter's masking tape. My wife and kids asked why I was numbering the tanks since I left the food on each hood anyway. I said what if she walks away with the box in her hand and then gets them mixed up.

This way she won't feed cichlid food to the tetras and end up with algae wafers for the Jack Dempseys etc...

So here's a pic of what I did and hope it helps someone else save their fish from the people who say " they still looked hungry so I dumped more food in there " or " Oops I accidently spilled too much food out into the water"

I am doing water changes on all 8 tanks tomorrow and feeding veggies and stuff before I leave so they will at least have a treat before 10 days of dry food.

Hope it helps someone.

--itZme

 

[Angry_Platy]

Thats a really good idea. I vaguely remember hearing about that somewhere before (perhaps even here)....

Question though...do the lids for each day open separately or does every lid open?

It was kinda hard to tell from the pics.....

 

[itZme]

Each day opens independently so they can just open the one compartment and dump it in. I could only find 6 of that type at the store so I had to get one that has a single lid that opens up all the compartments at once.

I am having her start feeding them the second day after we leave. (I skip a day of feeding every couple weeks)
The lights are on timers on most of the tanks and the others will get a little natural lighting but those should be fine for 10 days without the hoods on.

-- itZme

 

[Squirrelbuddies]

That's exactly what I did when we went away for a week! It worked out very well. The other good thing about this is that the people feeding your fish don't have to touch the food so you don't have to worry about them having something toxic on their fingers. Just pop open the right day of the week and dump it in!

Hope you have a great trip!

 

[dwarfgourami]

Brilliant, I'll copy that! Have a great holiday!