What's your advice about my predicament?

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divemaster99

divemaster99

Dovii
MFK Member
Jan 10, 2014
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Pittsburgh, PA
I'm looking for your guys personal opinions on this matter since this is something I'm going to have to deal with in a week.

I currently have a 4" yellow bullhead in quarantine in a 14 gallon Rubbermaid bin. I'm not sure how bad the params get but I change the water every two days once a good amount of waste appears on the bottom. Well I'm leaving for vacation this weekend and won't be back for a week so I'll be leaving fish care to someone I know. The only problem is this person is a bit out of condition to be doing any water changes and while that will be fine with all my other tanks since I'll just change their water the day before I leave, I'm worried about the bullhead. This is an extremely dirty fish in a relatively small volume of water. The longest I've let wcs go so far on his tank has been 4 days. So I come to this point where I have to decided to make one of three decisions, which would you guys go with (if you have a better idea please suggest it):

1) leave it in the bin and just hope it survives for a week with no water changes (there is a seeded sponge filter in with it but it doesn't remove solid waste). PS, bin footprint is 20" X 15"

2) put it in a spare 20 tall I have (24" x 12" x 16") instead of the bin.

3) end the quarantine and transfer it to the tank it's supposed to go in (75 gallon) which definitely will be ok Sioux water changes but I don't want the person taking care of my fish to have to tell me that he ate every giant danio in the tank and has a striped raph down his throat. I'd prefer to deal with those possible problems myself if they ever occur.
 
stop feeding it while you aren't there, no food, no waste, fish would be fine for a week. Also don't power feed before, there will be a spike in waste while you are gone. Feed when you come home so you can do the water changes then. As far as where to keep it, as long as he is comfortable in the 20 more gallonage will usually be better than less.
 
Ok, I'll probably move him to the 20 then. But no food for a week!? Isn't that just a bit to long to go with no food, I could just cut down to food only twice while I'm gone instead?
 
From everything I have heard fish can go a few weeks easy without food. Especially being the case that it is a bullhead, in the wild during winter feeding drops dramatically for all game fish. So a bullhead should be able to go a week no problem. Now if he will be happy about it, that's a different story lol. Catfish certainly love to eat

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A week or more isnt a big deal for a fish to not eat. Think about the trip fish make from south america or africa or other collection points. Id actually stop feeding him a couple days before you go so he will stop pooping and do a wc before you go.

And if you still think a week is a long time I had a bass I was holding for a friend go 47 days without eating a single thing before he broke and started eating pellets
 
brich999 said:
A week or more isnt a big deal for a fish to not eat. Think about the trip fish make from south america or africa or other collection points. Id actually stop feeding him a couple days before you go so he will stop pooping and do a wc before you go.

And if you still think a week is a long time I had a bass I was holding for a friend go 47 days without eating a single thing before he broke and started eating pellets
Click to expand...

Lol that's dedication right there

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I know they can definitely go that long, my striped raph went 3.5 months without eating earlier this year but I was only concerned about how healthy that is for them.
 
Yeah raphael are very finicky, any time I move anything or add anything to the tank mine will not eat for like a week. He has been chowing down like a pig recently tho lol

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Yup, good advice. Stop feeding. In the wild, predatory fish don't get 3 squares a day. At 4", he should be fine, and it far outweighs the risk of over feeding and poor water quality. Pardon how this sounds, but moving him is possibly pointless, since the move alone will potentially cause him to not eat for most of the week anyway.
 
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