Pre-surgery tank(s) Preparations

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Thomas616

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Joined
Sep 3, 2022
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Location
Mars Pa
Long story short I will be getting neck and brain surgery, which means I won't be able to do a lot with my aquariums for maybe a month.(I'll have my brother do water changes but not much more.) I was looking for suggestions to help prepare my aquariums for about a month of not-as-good-as-usual maintenance. I currently don't have pictures but I have 5 aquariums
1. 50 gallon cichlids community tank
2. 10 gallon Betta Tank (planted)
3. 10 gallon badis tank. (Planted)
4. 20 gallon long community tank (Heavily planted)
5. 40 gallon fancy goldfish tank.
Looking for any suggestions, to help keep them healthy. my surgery is on September 12th so hopefully, I can prepare before then.
Thank you
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Sorry to hear you need surgery, and neck and brain surgery, eeks, scary stuff. good luck with that I hope it all goes well.

If you feed the fish more often (3-5 times a day) before you go, it will give them a chance to gain some weight and they won't need feeding as much for a few weeks after.

Do big water changes and gravel clean the substrate every day before you go. this will keep the tanks cleaner if you feed more and mean the tanks will be cleaner when you get back, so the fish can go longer before another water change.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filters a couple of days before you go so they won't need doing for another month.

Have lights on timers if possible so you can rest and the lights will go on and off by themselves.

If you want to add any plants, do it now so you have time to monitor the fish for diseases that might come in with plants. Or don't add any plants until you have recovered.

Don't add anything else to the tanks either and certainly no fish, shrimp or snails. Just feed a bit more, do more water changes and clean the filters. Then you can feed them a bit if you feel well enough and have someone do a water change once every few weeks if that's possible.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Sorry to hear you need surgery, and neck and brain surgery, eeks, scary stuff. good luck with that I hope it all goes well.

If you feed the fish more often (3-5 times a day) before you go, it will give them a chance to gain some weight and they won't need feeding as much for a few weeks after.

Do big water changes and gravel clean the substrate every day before you go. this will keep the tanks cleaner if you feed more and mean the tanks will be cleaner when you get back, so the fish can go longer before another water change.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filters a couple of days before you go so they won't need doing for another month.

Have lights on timers if possible so you can rest and the lights will go on and off by themselves.

If you want to add any plants, do it now so you have time to monitor the fish for diseases that might come in with plants. Or don't add any plants until you have recovered.

Don't add anything else to the tanks either and certainly no fish, shrimp or snails. Just feed a bit more, do more water changes and clean the filters. Then you can feed them a bit if you feel well enough and have someone do a water change once every few weeks if that's possible.
Thank you so much. You don't understand how much I appreciate it. I will definitely need to deep cleaning of the substrate. And currently, I turn on all the lights by hand lol. i like to say good morning to them. but I will find a timer to get them all set up. Thank you
 
Hi and welcome to TFF... :hi:
Hopefully, your recovery will go well... 👍
 
I had a similar issue back in 2019 when I had a heart attack. I had 18 tanks at the time. I was in the hospital for 12 days and when I came home i was pretty much restricted in my activities for some time. Because I am in a fish club my bro contacted the admins there and a couple of folks volunteered.

Basucally water changes which I do every week became every 2 + weeks for a while. Feeding was handled by my bro and ir was mostly in tanks with fry. Other tanks were allowed to got 2-4 days without food. Feeding was reduced ti X number of sinking sticks and handful of flakes.

It was a good month after I cam hime before I did much tank work myself. I was restricted in how much weight I could lift. I had to work slowly and find weight to only fill buckets 1/2 way for a while.

The trick to keeping tanks safe is to greatly reduce feeding except for whit babies in a tank. N. even though I could not do the work I was able to help the person doing it by explaining some of the tricks I had learned along the way. I have a lot oof pumps and hose which makes moving water a bit easier.

My bro was useless for tank work but great at feeding. The people who came to help with tank maint. were experienced fish keepers. I mostly served as a director showing folks where things were stored or where to plug in or where to pump out to with waste water. If the people you have doing the work when you are least available are not familiar with keeping fish, then find somebody you trust who is and ask if your tank person can contact them for advice if there are any problems,

Good luck with the surgery and I hope you have a speedy recovery. While your fish are important, your health is moreso, If worse comes to worse, you can replace fish. You cannot replace yourself.

edited for spelling and typos
 
Last edited:
I had a similar issue back in 2019 when I had a heart attack. I had 18 tanks at the time. I was in the hospital for 12 days and when I came home i was pretty much restricted in my activities for some time. Because I am in a fish club my bro contacted the admins there and a couple of folks volunteered.

Basucally water changes which I do every week became every 2 + weeks for a while. Feeding was handled by my bro and ir was mostly in tanks with fry. Other tanks were allowed to got 2-4 days without food. Feeding was reduced ti X number of sinking sticks and handful of flakes.

It was a good month after I cam hime before I did much tank work myself. I was restricted in how much weight I could lift. I had to work slowly and find weight to only fill buckets 1/2 way for a while.

The trick to keeping tanks safe is to greatly reduce feeding except for whit babies in a tank. N. even though I could not do the work I was able to help the person doing it by explaining some of the tricks I had learned along the way. I have a lot oof pumps and hose which makes moving water a bit easier.

My bro was useless for tank work but greata t feeding. The people who came to hwlp woith tank maint. were experienced fish keepers. I mostly served as a director showing folks where things were stored or where to plug in or where to pump out to with waste water. If the people you have doing the work when you are least available are not familiar with keeping fishm then find somebody you trust who is and ask if your tank person can contact them for advice if there are any problems,

Good luck with the surgery and I hope you have a speedy recovery. While your fish are important, your health is moreso, If worse comes to worse, you can replace fish. You cannot replace yourself.
Thank you i really appreciate it. with it being 7 days away I'm honestly pretty worried about the whole thing. But thank you for sharing ur story, really put my mind at ease.
 
My fish dealt all right after my surgery, I added extra live plants, fed less often and after 4 weeks did a water change very slowly and carefully with 1/3 full buckets
 
minor update for anyone who wanted to know. almost a month past surgery and I never felt better. i honestly feel like I am ready to start living again. Thanks to everyone
That's awesome news Thomas, I'm so pleased! :clap::yahoo:😊
 

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