Fish Care While Traveling
What to do with my aquarium when I go on a family trip?
Taking care of your aquarium while you are off with your family is pretty easy. It’s not like a dog or cat, but you need to understand a couple of things.
You will need to, at minimum, have a plan for feeding your fish and livestock and turn on and off the lights and aerator if you are going to stay more than 3 to 4 days off.
Feeding your fish and livestock when you are not home
First of all, your livestock will be fine without food for 3 to 4 days. It is actually recommended to keep them fasting for a couple of days from time to time. So if you are going to stay the weekend off, don’t worry about food.
Still, if you are going to stay a week or two, you can ask a friend to come once per day or every two days to feed your fish, or you can buy a simple and cheap automated fish feeder like this one.
I strongly recommend you start feeding your fish with this device 4 or 5 days before leaving your house, so you will ensure it is working as you expect it.
What to do with your tank lights when you are not home for a couple of days:
First, if you don’t have live plants, turn off the light and leave it off until you come back. Give some rest to your livestock. They will enjoy this time without lights.
If you have live plants, you probably already have a timer (mechanical or digital) or a smart plug, so you don’t need to do anything during your time off.
If you don’t have an automated way to turn on and off your lights, I recommend you buy a digital timer like this one or a smart plug like this one. It will help you during your vacation as you can easily set them up to turn on and off your lights.
What do to with my aquarium aerator while I am off for vacation?
Your fish and livestock will be perfectly fine without the aerator turning on for some days. If you are going to stay 3 to 4 days off, don’t worry about this.
If you are going to spend a week or more on vacation, I recommend you to set up a digital timer or smart plug to turn on and off your aeretor.
I recommend you buy a digital timer like this one or a smart plug like this one.
I replaced my digital timers with smart plugs years ago because I can check their status far from home using my cell phone. Still, I have used those digital timers for years, and they never failed.
One last thing: I will not say anything about the water heater because they turn on and off based on the desired temperature.
Suppose, for any reason, you have a heater that doesn’t turn on and off automatically; I strongly recommend you to buy one as temperature variations can cause health problems to your fish, so this is something you must have anyways.
