Help for safe keeping Discus

[satt71]

Hi

I live in Chicago NW suburbs. I am thinking of taking a vacation for a month or so. I have my 150G running with 15 discus and other fishes. I do not know waht to do with the fish when i am away. Is there anyone or any place where I can put the fishes for safe keeping for thid duration for a fee.

If any of you know any details. Kindly keep me posted.

[mmorris]

Can you hire a neighbor kid? My best fish babysitter ever was the teenage girl next door.

[OttawaDisc]

That's what I do with my cats/fish...ask the 11 year old next door to come every other day and feed the animals and I pay him when I'm back from vacation.

[fishorama]

I'd advise portioning out food for the fish-sitter so there is no mistake of how much a pinch or whatever is. I only have my neighbor feed half rations every other day as I don't expect her to change water. But for a month you'll have to leave very clear instructions on how to do them.

Ask around at your lfs & fish club, maybe someone lives close who understands better what to do.

[shoggoth43]

Ask around at the LFS(s) in the area. One of mine will actually board fish. There's a small fee, which isn't bad. When they board the fish go into the system, so they're on the same central system as the other fish and it's at your own risk so if they die that's your problem. Not ideal, but it's a possible option.

That said, there are also several other employees there that I would actually trust to be able to come in every so often and do what needs to be done with my tanks, so that may also be an option.

Alternately, I have the unemployed brother in law as fishsitter option. He knows not to feed too much and a lot of the food is frozen cubes so it's easy to portion out. One cube in the morning, one at night. Daily shut off filter, drain out the water to this point, swish out the prefilter in the water being drained, replace, add capful of prime and refill from the tap, restart filter. The water changes pretty much keep the risks down. Any problems, redo the water change. Your complexity for instructions may vary.

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S

[mmorris]

I had the teenager do wc's as well. I wrote out the instructions, step by step, and then I had her over before I left to do a wc. She had to do it by following the instructions, and whereever there was confusion, I knew I needed to clarify it in my instructions. I paid her extra for that intro session.

[DiscusKeeper403]

I would probably set up auto feeders and drips systems. This would be my favorite method but sometimes it isn't feasible.