Healthy Aquarium

[NOLANANO]

Hey everyone,

I am just here to rejoice. I recently went our of town for 12 days and due to unforeseen circumstances, I was only able to get someone to feed the tank once at the 9 day mark. Yesterday I returned home and not a single fish was lost!  IDK if there is a bigger sign of a healthy aquarium than being able to essentially ignore it for 2 weeks and have everything inside it be happy and healthy upon your return. In the past, if I went on a vacation for more than a couple of days, I would always return to some sort of issue. I am so relieved that it all worked out this time.

Anyone else have any similar stories? Or maybe a time when it didn't go so well?

[Tlindsey]

On 7/9/2024 at 9:41 AM, NOLANANO said:

Hey everyone,

I am just here to rejoice. I recently went our of town for 12 days and due to unforeseen circumstances, I was only able to get someone to feed the tank once at the 9 day mark. Yesterday I returned home and not a single fish was lost!  IDK if there is a bigger sign of a healthy aquarium than being able to essentially ignore it for 2 weeks and have everything inside it be happy and healthy upon your return. In the past, if I went on a vacation for more than a couple of days, I would always return to some sort of issue. I am so relieved that it all worked out this time.

Anyone else have any similar stories? Or maybe a time when it didn't go so well?

Yes I remember leaving on vacation for a week and was worried about the fish and a sump. At the time had 3 aquariums running at the time. I got back and to my surprise no casualties.  I've personally never kept aquariums without a little algae growing or a plant or two. Also learned that some fish species can survive a couple of weeks or even a month but like I stated depends on the species and the size in some cases. I have fish that I feed daily, every other day and fast a day. Most keep their aquariums excessively clean imo. For example see a little algae and assume that's bad lol. @NOLANANO

[Scapexghost]

The longest I've left me tanks completely unattended was 9 days. Repashy came in clutch. 

[EricksonAquatics]

Thanks for sharing! And congrats on having such a stable ecosystem in your tank!

I think more new hobbyists should hear this. This is one of the ultimate goals of fish keeping!

[HelplessNewbie]

We will be coming back soon from 10 days being away and had someone come in at the 6 day mark to very lightly feed our 4 display and 6 qt tanks. I hope our result is the same as you. Last time, we were away 7 days and lost 1 nano fish. Have cameras on the tanks and it looks like the fish are grazing on algae and plant matter.

[PygmyCorydora]

I got someone to feed my fish but I was terrified cause 2 weeks no water change. My fish were okay! 

You can always get an automatic feeder if they don’t need live food or like repashy or something!

Also if you’re afraid of someone over feeding your fish I use those weekly pill boxes to store the food for the week

Glad all your fish are okay 🙂

[HelplessNewbie]

Well, we got home 3 days later than expected, due to the crowdstrike outage affecting flights. Lost a total of 2 fish in 2 of 10 tanks. Glad it is not more, but losing even 1 still makes me sad.

[NOLANANO]

On 7/22/2024 at 9:07 PM, HelplessNewbie said:

Well, we got home 3 days later than expected, due to the crowdstrike outage affecting flights. Lost a total of 2 fish in 2 of 10 tanks. Glad it is not more, but losing even 1 still makes me sad.

In the days following my trip, I lost 2 fish. one male and one female Apisto. I still have 2 males and 2 females that are healthy but it was sad to see those go. I wonder if maybe not eating much for a 2 weeks and then being fed normal had anything to do with it? Maybe I should have fed just a little and increased it over time.

I will add that the male Apisto I lost was my weakest male. He was in the middle as far as size but he never challenged the bigger one and the smaller one would push him around too. Maybe he was just a weak specimen?  I can't really tell the female apart as much and I never saw her die but I used to have 3 and now I only see 2.

Edited July 23 by NOLANANO

[beastie]

A healthy aquarium and not too small mouthed fish / too sensitive fish should handle three weeks with no feeding no problem. I do feed extra before leaving, for like a week or two prior I would suggest to feed even twice a day but two week for sure is not a problem.

I found a micropredator fish pose problems, the smaller the fish, the bigger chance of losing them. Microrasboras, small killifish, fish that dont store too much body weight do tend to not handle the longer periods well, but having shrimp colony with those fish provides extra food source. Healthy aquarium with ostracods could work, and I had luck having cyclops breed in a tank when I fed with frozen cyclops and they woke up and bred, so again free food source. I even had fry survive 4-5 day long feeding breaks, I put in microworms before leaving and they stay alive for a while 

Looking at any fishforum/reddit there are so many horror stories with overfeeding and the spikes and deaths afterwards that I would always rather risk starving some fish than overfeeding and killing the whole tank.