Vacation disaster

[Gloworm34]

My nanotank was looking great before I went on vacation. My frogbit which was previously yellowed were thriving enough that I was regularly growing some out to not overcrowd the surface. I typically dose Fluorish Excel daily and Fluorish Supplement weekly. I left for just one week. Someone came by to feed my betta twice, but I didn’t have them add the Excel. I come back and this gross mold had sprouted on my driftwood which was sterilized by baking only 3 weeks prior and was doing fine without a trace of mold before I left. And my frogbits are literally being eaten away. Even the salvinia look more brown on the edges than before I left.
Do I toss the driftwood? Resterilize it? Just clean off the mold and do 50% exchanges?
What about the frogbit? Toss all the plants with mold? Trim the leaves that are dying? Sterilize the rest? Other plants seem to be fine.
What do I do when I leave for a week again In August? My husband will make me toss my tank if I start wanting to stay home for the tank!

 

[kiko]

something I've learned from making mistakes by doing my job based on other's calculations...
NEVER trust other people..specially if something you love/care about is at risk...
get an auto-feeder before august and don't be letting no one mess with your tank...
get rid of the bad leaves...boil the wood again and do small water changes daily for a week
if you keep getting mold...start thinking of naturally getting rid of it...
snails for mold....pea puffers later when mold is gone to get those snails...shrimp to provide a food source for the puffers and once the snails and mold are fully gone...I'd remove the puffers..

 

[DoubleDutch]

something I've learned from making mistakes by doing my job based on other's calculations...
NEVER trust other people..specially if something you love/care about is at risk...
get an auto-feeder before august and don't be letting no one mess with your tank...
get rid of the bad leaves...boil the wood again and do small water changes daily for a week
if you keep getting mold...start thinking of naturally getting rid of it...
snails for mold....pea puffers later when mold is gone to get those snails...shrimp to provide a food source for the puffers and once the snails and mold are fully gone...I'd remove the puffers..

But who exactly shouldn't be trusted in this case ?

Sterilizing wood won't prevent fungussing when brought in wet conditions. Quite normal and has nothing to do with you leaving.

If plants are used to a steady addition of ferts and carbon, they will vome to stillstand when / if that addition stops.

Clean the wood and put it in again (when fungus occures again remove it gently).
After some time it won't reoccure.

Remove the dieing plants and restart giving the amounts of ferts / excel.

 

[Back in the fold]

@kiko says don't trust other people when something you care about is at risk. @DoubleDutch asks who exactly shouldn't be trusted ?
I was once told this : If you have something nice you won't wreck it , someone else will. That saying has always proven true. So , don't trust anyone other than yourself. The aquarium and the Betta would have been fine unattended . Now you know.

 

[DoubleDutch]

@kiko says don't trust other people when something you care about is at risk. @DoubleDutch asks who exactly shouldn't be trusted ?
I was once told this : If you have something nice you won't wreck it , someone else will. That saying has always proven true. So , don't trust anyone other than yourself. The aquarium and the Betta would have been fine unattended . Now you know.

Sorry but I still don't understand the urge to blame / not trust someone who only fed the fish and was so nice to help someone out.
The issues weren't caused by this person and would probably also have occured when unattended.

This is probably what is going wrong in today's society. Always a search for someone to blame if things go wrong.
The OP didn't do so btw.

 

[Back in the fold]

@DoubleDutch This is how I see the situation. @kiko was not blaming anyone but lamenting the situation and what happened. The vacation caretaker did their duty with the best of intentions but , apparently , was not a knowledgable aquarist. Would this have happened to the aquarium anyway ? Perhaps but we will never know. The aquarium in question is described as a nano tank which must be fairly small and it may be that the problems described were about to happen anyway like you said. Small aquariums are less stable as we all know.

 

[kiko]

Sorry but I still don't understand the urge to blame / not trust someone who only fed the fish and was so nice to help someone out.
The issues weren't caused by this person and would probably also have occured when unattended.

This is probably what is going wrong in today's society. Always a search for someone to blame if things go wrong.
The OP didn't do so btw.

It's not about pointing the finger at anyone because most likely it's actually a family member probably feeding the fish at the end of the day...
from what is stated...the husband isn't a fan...maybe said family member couldn't give 2 craps either...
best thing for her since this is something she cares about...get an auto-feeder and just let it be...
a week isn't gonna be the end of the world and she doesn't need someone messing with her tank

 

[DoubleDutch]

It's not about pointing the finger at anyone because most likely it's actually a family member probably feeding the fish at the end of the day...
from what is stated...the husband isn't a fan...maybe said family member couldn't give 2 craps either...
best thing for her since this is something she cares about...get an auto-feeder and just let it be...
a week isn't gonna be the end of the world and she doesn't need someone messing with her tank

Is it me reading the initial post completely wrong. Feeding wasn't the problem, lack of excel and ferts in combination with fungussing wood is.

If plants flourish / thrive adding certain levels and one suddenly stops.doing so, this might occure.

Personally I'd ask the feeder to add those too when on vacation. Fixed amounts in small cups or so.

 

[kiko]

Is it me reading the initial post completely wrong. Feeding wasn't the problem, lack of excel and ferts in combination with fungussing wood is.

If plants flourish / thrive adding certain levels and one suddenly stops.doing so, this might occure.

Personally I'd ask the feeder to add those too when on vacation. Fixed amounts in small cups or so.

I honestly don't use chemicals in my own tanks so it's never something I would give advice on much less having a 3rd party doing it while on vacation.
that's why I provided a natural way of getting rid of things
people want their plants to grow nice..introduce more fert...(fish crap)
reduce ammonia? vacuum gravel+water change....
water changes? dechlorinator filter from tap...and small water changes...
very hardwater? water-softener filter / ro, drif woods, leaves...
soft? increase oxygenation....
diseases? salt/vinegar/carbon
and LOTS of filtration...I can never stress filtration enough...
but as far as adding DR this or that and ph's up/down and prime, stabilizer, 24h dechlorinators it's not something I use so I personally wouldn't suggest it
people want to fully dechlorinate....boil a kettle of water and put it in a jug....everyone's got a kettle in their home and takes 3minutes to boil a single gallon
I could go on...but yeah...I try to get things done as natural as I can