# 4 weeks without water change in the summer



## NavMan (Aug 14, 2011)

Hi all,

At the moment I have 3 goldfish in a 15gl, 2ft tank. I want to make the move to freshwater fish right now, but the only thing that's stopping me is the I will be going away for 4 weeks in December/January.

My question is, is it possible to have say maybe a betta, or 5 neon tetras and have them survive for 4 weeks without a water change? I will be getting an automatic feeder.

Another thing is that I live in Australia, and summer starts in December. Temperatures here can easily get to 40C+ (indoor would more likely be 35C-40C). I am guessing these temperatures aren't very good for freshwater fish and it would probably be unwise to leave the tank alone for this period. The thing is, even if I was at home, the only thing I could possibly do to help is turn off the water heater. What do people do in these situations?

Looking forward to your answers!
Cheers.


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## ZebraDanio12 (Jun 17, 2011)

It should be okay...I haven't left my fish for that long, but I've left them for a week....


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## chronoboy (Jan 17, 2011)

I'll probably get **************** for this but, I believe its how you keep your tank determines how long you can go without water changes, me I go a month between cleaning if not more, but I test my tanks every 1-2 weeks, I don't know if you seen the video of my tanks I posted but those videos are of my tanks after me being on vacation for a month, beside a lot of torn up plants, dust on the outside of the tank and filters that needed a bit of a rinse. Otherwise my tank is still crystal clear, water tested fine and I even came home to more angel eggs on the filter inlet tube.

But I'm not sure if id advise this, I've had my tanks for years and I've got them setup to take care of themselves they have auto feeders and the lights are on timers and they all have double the filtration they need, plus it depend on the fish you keep, when I kept oscars I couldn't get away with more then 2-3 weeks without a water change but of course I couldn't keep live plants with them either.

So since you got time before you leave id mess around with your auto feeder and get a light timer, and do tests, after you get those dialed in, i would try going a month without a water change well your there, but two weeksinto it just start testing it every other day and see how it goes for the last two weeks.


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## chronoboy (Jan 17, 2011)

Oh one other thing is, don't leave your tank that long unless you got somebody to watch it, I have my neighbor watch my tanks when I'm out of town, he comes in once a day to feed my cat n dogs and to make sure everything on the tanks are ok and to give them there frozen food "but they don't get as much frozen food when I'm gone" plus my tanks evaporate a gallon a day so I have a supply of fish water treated and ready for the neighbor to keep the tanks topped off.

A big reason why you need somebody checking on it is that what if you have a power outage or somthing while your gone? It could be devastating, or if you get a amonia spike, that's why going and getting those things that you stick in your tank that tell you if your have a amonia spike would be another good investment.

Anyways good luck and atleast you got time to figure this all out.


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## NavMan (Aug 14, 2011)

Hey mate, thanks for the reply.



chronoboy said:


> So since you got time before you leave id mess around with your auto feeder and get a light timer, and do tests, after you get those dialed in, i would try going a month without a water change well your there, but two weeksinto it just start testing it every other day and see how it goes for the last two weeks.


I definitely will get a timer for the lights, but the thing is, I don't want to test the tank with tropical fish before I leave. I mean, what happens if the fish die before I leave itself? I have goldfish in there now, so I guess I could test it with those.



chronoboy said:


> Oh one other thing is, don't leave your tank that long unless you got somebody to watch it.


This isn't possible, otherwise I wouldn't be asking on the forums  I need to have it completely unattended for 4 weeks.

Thanks again for the response. I may just get 5 neon tetras and see how I go with those, since their bioload isn't very high at all for my tank.


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

Prior to leaving, like for the month previous, I would do 10% water changes every 2-3 days and then 30-40% water changes on the weekend. You will not want to keep your filters too clean in that as that can cause problems of it's own so do normal filter maintenance and gravel vacs (i.e. clean those weekly, but not every other day). Make sure not to change out to a new filter sponge before leaving. 

Right before you leave you will want to rinse the sponge in old water (the water you collect from the tank) and put it back into the tank. And then give it a good vacuuming. You will want that to be a 40% water change. 

What the changes leading up to this time will do is keep the tank as clean as advisable prior to leaving it for such a long time. When you get back you want to do a water change but only about 20% and then 20% a few days later as changing too much too fast can cause some problems. When you are done with that you can go back to a normal weekly maintenance schedule. You will want to test your tanks and be more agressive with the maintenance if there is a spike. 

You will want to over feed your fish for a week or two prior, but not all at once. You want them to eat a lot but not have a lot go to the floor of the tank. So feed multiple times a day. Then you can set in an auto feeder to UNDERFEED your tank as the less ammonia the better and decaying food= ammonia. Personally I would see if there is a way to set it to feed a minimal amount every 2-3 days. 

I would also ask you why it is so important to change your tank over just before leaving. That is a shortsighted thing to do in my mind. Make the change after you get back when you can actually enjoy it and know that all of your fish are okay.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

You want to start with low levels of crap in the water. I would start doing increasing % water changes as the time get shorter ending in a huge one about 3 day prior to going. You want time to fix any issue the water change creates. You might even want to use a pH control product like Neutral regulator just to keep the pH from falling while you are gone.

For the heat, you want to add some aeration. Maybe an extra sponge filter or two. But you also want to control evaporation so there is water in the tank when you get back. Use glad press and seal or some other wrap to coven openings in the lid and filter.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

I just left my tanks for 3 weeks but with a friend dropping by to feed and check if filters etc were on. I left the airconditioner on at 79 degrees to maintain temperatures in the house. Good thing too as temps outside spiked to about 38.9 for several days in a row-- like about a week. Friend topped up tanks as needed. Told her to underfeed. everyone was fine. I did tank maintenance the day after I got home, the bottoms were a bit more dirty than usual.
A friend went to africa for 6 weeks and his fish were on an automatic feeder while he was gone. Family stopped in weekly to check on everything. All went well. 
When I was a kid I had a 10 gallon well stocked tank. I did water changes annualy. I am not recommending this at all but apart from having very green water to the point I couldn't see into the tank the fish were all ok. The tank was well planted and usually was overstocked with plants by the end of the year.There were always more fish than I started with.
In the 'old days' I used an incandescent light so water greened up fast.
You should be ok . Can you leave the a/c on?
We haven't got the hydro bill for the a/c yet but I figure I would have used it if I was home anyway.


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