Had a Bad Day

[irelandb]

I recently had to go out of town for week for work. upon returning I found that my 2 pleco's had both died. Talked with my room mate he stated that he followed my feeing instructions ect... Looked at my tank closer and found that my rope fish was moving very slowly. I feed the group and they attack the cube of bloodworms very aggresivly Also found that 2 more of the over grown feeder gold fish missing!! I thinking the feeding is not looking good. I cleened the tank to try to get things back together. Then the rope fish dies any concern I might have that I'm going to loose anymore fish?

Thanks!

 

[boisblancboy]

Have your checked your water parameters? Theres a chance while you were gone things got way out of balance.

 

[mjryan]

could he have OVERfed? possible ammonia spike?

 

[boofish2]

It's because of experiences like these that if I'm only gone for a week, either I won't have anyone feed my fish or just come once in the middle of the week and I prepare the amount of food in a ziploc so that no one is estimating but ME. I like to do a big WC b4 I leave as well. Non-fishkeepers just don't get it, and what's worse they don't understand why you're so upset when your fish die. I feel ya.

 

[davo]

I do the same, and only trust my fishkeeping friends to look after any if im ever away. I would check all your water parameters, and make sure you've done a waterchange etc etc. Sorry about your fish, what pleco sp. did you have? Welcome to MFK, hope your luck improves

 

[Eupterus]

Stuff like this used to happen to me all the time during famiily holidays. Dead rotting fish left in the tank was routine.
Worst I had to deal with a six inch rotting cichlid, bloated up and in one of my ceramic cinder blocks.

Then there was the baby cichlid tank where the entire tank was filled with dead fish despite instructions to net out any fish that died and even funnier...they continued to drop in food when there were no fish left so there was this heap of food just rotting.

My blue eyed pleco once turned almost white and was swimming around all funny after I came back to cloudy tank. I'm surprised that is not when I lost that pleco.

A horror story I heard is of someone going away and the fishsitter left a foot long dead pleco in a 55 gal gal rotting I think for a week or two. Of course it killed the whole tank off.

Sometimes I think I should advertise for this job because I wouldn't do stupid idiot things. But then who would trust me from the internet to go into their home to check their fish. I could like steal anything from them.

 

[boisblancboy]

One thing about fish is there really is no harm in leaving for a week and not feeding them. Fish can go for a LONG time without eating. Its a whole lot better in the long run not feeding them if you are only gone for a short time as opposed to coming home and everything dead or near it.

 

[prophets]

Sorry to hear about your losses.

 

[RadleyMiller]

Sorry to hear about you loss. Sounds like a water parameter thing.

 

[ANGELMINE]

I had family try feeding my fish when i was on vacation,i used those little plastic cups with lids you fill with kethup in fast food places,i would mix it up with flakes in one pellets in the other,ect......I just bought auto feeder from thatpet.com..battery operated you can set to feed twice aday in you prefered 20bucks and it works like a charm...good luck