Tropical Fish Hobbyist - October 2010

sometimes for more than a week at a time, which puts me in something of a dilemma when it comes to taking care of my five freshwater aquariums. I have a retired family member who generously offered to come in and feed the fish every day when I’m traveling. Unfortunately, he has no experience with aquariums.

I’m not too worried about that as far as feeding is concerned because I can set aside the right amount of flake food or pellets to be given to the fish each day. What does concern me, though, is how to make sure any equipment malfunctions are dealt with while I’m gone. I’d hate to come back and find a tank full of fish dead because the filter or heater broke down and the family member had no idea how to fix the problem. Any recommendations?

Scott Rimer via email

I’ve always found that the biggest challenge when lining up people to care for my aquariums while I’m away isn’t so much getting them to feed the right amount to the fish, but somehow getting them to understand the myriad of minor tweaks, adjustments, and checks I do on a daily basis to keep the system operating properly. All of the art behind the science of aquarium keeping can be overwhelming to someone with no prior aquarium-keeping experience.

The best advice I can give is to invite the relative over a few days in advance of your departure to give him the rundown on your aquariums’ basic systems (heating, filtration, aeration, lighting, etc.) and to advise him of any parameters you’ll need him to check when he visits. He doesn’t need an in-depth understanding of how each component works, just a general sense of how they should look and sound when operating correctly. That way, if he observes, for example, that water isn’t trickling back into the tank from your power filter, bubbles are no longer rising from an airstone, a light is burned out, or the temperature seems to be rising or falling precipitously, he should get the idea that something is wrong and may need to be remedied.

If you can explain ahead of time how to fix some of the more common problems, great, but don’t assume he’ll have the know-how or confidence level to solve the problem independently. Be sure to leave a phone number or email address where you can be reached in case of an emergency. Also, I

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always make a point of leaving behind the phone number of a trusted aquarium dealer who can walk the caretaker through a fix over the phone in the event that I can’t be reached for some reason.

It is also a good idea to leave much less food for each feeding than you would use if you were home. Fish can handle a reduced diet much more easily than they can overfeeding.

In the event of a problem with filtration or heating that is not detected by the caregiver, the decreased amount of food may be a lifesaver because less nitrogenous waste will accumulate.

Most important of all is to leave as little to chance as possible. Type up a checklist of the basic duties you’d like him to perform and how often they should be performed—

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