My Non Fish Knowing Parents Caring For My Fish All Summer

[barb-e]

This summer i'm going away to this program at MSU for 6 weeks and I have to leave my 10 gallon in my parents care. First, they already said they won't do water changes (I think the constant sight of me lugging buckets through the house turned them off) and second, i'm afraid they will overfeed my fish. PLUS...my fish are already sick (I think they have gill flukes and i've been treating them but they still won't eat and they all hide). I don' t know how to deal with the whole situation. What should I do??

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

6 weeks is a long time to not do water changes, especially during the summer where a lot of evaporation in the tank will take place. If you are worried about them over-feeding the fish though, ask them to show you how much food they think the fish need and then correct them if they give too much- its safer to feed fish too little rather than too much either way, excess food lying around in the tank can mess up the water quality and harbor nasty deseases like columnaris.
How long do you have until you need to go away? Do you have brothers or sisters or other relatives or friends who may be more capable of looking after your fish?

 

[OohFeeshy]

RE water changes, could you get them to do lots of smaller water changes? Like, a litre per day? That's no real hardship, you could always say to chuck the waste on the plants which will do them some good.

 

[*Fishkies*]

Yeah tell your parents that they can water the plants with the water they take out of your tank!

Also you could get a few of those pill containers that hole pills for days of the week, for you you should get like a big one. Then put the amount of fish food in each day for how much the fish eat. I do that all the time when i have my grandma come in and feed my fish. It works great and they don't get overfed either!

 

[kewskills]

as a last resort you could get some "tetra easybalance" not ideal as water changes but may tide the six week period over, just tell them how much to add each week.
food measure out daily rations for them so they dont over feed

 

[dwarfgourami]

The overfeeding problem is easily solved by measuring out normal portions- a compartmented pill box is ideal- and the locking up the rest of the food so they can't get at it. I would tell them only to feed every three days or so to ease the pollution problem.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yup measured portions of food every couple of days, try and persuade them to do water changes if at all possible, even if it's only every fortnight or something it's better than nothing

i was just thinking of tetra easybalance, it's far from ideal and i wouldn't advise using it regularly, however since i first saw it i thought it might be useful for situations like this when you can't do water changes for a few weeks for one reason or another