Unexpected leave!

[lalalaura]

So I have to leave next week for a full month. My fish will be under the care of my parents.

I live at my parents house so they said they would take care of all my fish. I am kind of worried though, that they won't do everything as often as needed, or that they will overfeed them, etc. I am going to leave a list of important things for them to remember.

It really sucks because my parents are always telling me I take care of my fish too much, that I test the water too much, change the water too much.. So I am worried they won't do as good a job as me! They said not to worry because they would take very good care of my fish, but they don't have as much free time as I do so I think they might get a bit neglected. Last summer they took care of my one betta and bought him a bigger tank (which was awesome!) but he is easy to care for compared to the other bigger fish tanks I have now..

Does anyone have experiences with trusting other people to take care of their fish? Please share.. I need some positive stories.. I think I might just be paranoid.. my parents have had fish tanks for many years so I should be able to have faith in them!

[briser]

Two weeks ago I went away for a week and left my 5.5 gal, 3 gal and 1 gal in the hands of my mother. I showed her how to do a water change (the 3 gal gets a 50% change wednesday and saturday, and 1 gal gets 100% every 2 days and 5.5 gets 50% every saturday), how to feed etc..
When I got back they were all bloated (Should have seen this coming because she always says that 2 pellets twice a day isn't enough). And I asked her if she did okay with the water changes and she said she didn't do any changes because the water didn't look dirty.. even though the bottom was littered with fish poo.. And I said "Mom, you can't see the ammonia!! That's what kills them!" and she said "They're fine"..

I was not impressed and had to do water changes on all of them asap.

[chelsmarie23]

See if one of your friends would drop by and care for your fishies. My mother is somewhat ignorant about fish and always says I don't feed my fish enough (even though I do). Try a friend. My friends would be more likely to listen to me than my mother.

[kathstew]

I haven't had the need for anyone to take care of my fish more than one day when I was in the hospital. My sister has a betta too, so luckily she understood the requests I had.

I would stress to your parents the importance of changing the water because of ammonia, and the proper amounts of feeding.

My grandmother says its "cruel" that I "starve" my fish one day a week. I've tried explaining to her that if I don't they get bloated. She doesn't get it. LOL

Just really stress how important your fish are to you, and if you can, phone regularly to check up on them!

Good luck with your parents taking care of them, I am sure they will do fine.

[Silverfang]

I understand your frustrations. I'm leaving tomorrow and mother gets to care for my cat and my fish for four months. I was worried, she said is that all he gets? At least I know she'll follow directions, 2 pellets in the morning, no more than 3 blood worms in the evening. Like she said, she would rather take care of the cat than the fish!

[Arashi Takamine]

I'm leaving on vacation in August and I honestly would be worried because my dad sometimes forgets to feed my dog except on vacation and I know betta's can go awhile without food....But I think I'll be doing wellness calls to see if they're both okay and email him too since I'll be taking my laptop. Might just tell him to feed them once a day and talk to my mom about how we're going to tell him how to do things right.

[CyerRyn]

Provide them with a daily check list and show them how you do everything so they understand that the way you do it is what works. If I had to go away for that long that's exactly what I'd do though I don't really know anyone that would be able to come here daily. :< Guess that's why I don't go anywhere.

[Seka]

I'm in the same boat as you. I'm leaving for a trip to Europe next week, and my whole family is going. I was going to have a coworker take care of all my pets (five birds and the betta), but he got into a huge fight with his wife just yesterday that might ruin his marriage so I gotta find a new person to take care of my pets.

At least I'll only be gone for ten days.

Last time I went away for three days I had a neighbor take care of my birds. When I came back I found out the neighbor didn't even drop by the whole time I was away. Needless to say he wasn't welcome at my house after that.

[lalalaura]

I just spent like 3 hours typing out a list of everything that they have to do and remember. I read it over and it sounds like I'm the pickiest fish keeper on the planet. I gave it to my dad and I'm going to ask him about things tomorrow and get him to do a water change with me. I talk about my fish a lot so I think they understand most things, it's whether or not they "think" it is necessary is what bothers me.

They know not to overfeed them. I have a 10 gallon community tank that my dad is really involved with. But if I didn't test the water, change the water, look up the requirements of the fish, they wouldn't be half as healthy as they are. He used to feed them way too much than they need because they "looked hungry" (swim around the top). Once I told him to never touch my fish again he finally listened to me when I said he was feeding them too much. He said he had fish many years ago but didn't know anything about the nitrogen cycle. I had to explain it in such detail, I hope he understood. I have a test kit and told him to test the water every once in a while and wrote down what the parameters should be and what to do when they are too high. He's good at spotting diseases though, my fish are currently battling ick and he went out and bought the medication without me even knowing LOL. He probably knew I would get super worked up and research it to death.

I found out that I may be gone longer than a month, good thing my parents don't mind taking care of my 3 tanks! AHH I'm going to miss my fish :( lol. I won't even be able to call my parents often or email them to ask about the fish because where I'm going doesn't have cell phone service or internet. I sound like I will miss my fish more than my family LOL. I'm going to the middle of Algonquin Park for those of you who are familiar with it. My boyfriend works for a camp catering company (cooks all the meals everyday at a summer camp) and they need more employees because people backed out and people start coming next week! They offered me a good salary that I couldn't pass up.