Aww nuts...I lost some fish

[Riss]

Just come home from my first holiday after purchasing my 75g fish tank...only to arrive to fewer than when I left.

This is what I started with:
3 three spot gouramis
6 head and tail light tetras
7 neons
4 baby angelfish
2 blue rams
2 bristlenose catfish

It had been running beautifully for 6 months...no problems. I lost 2 of my gouramis, one of which was a beautiful healthy male, 4 of the head and tail tetras, and a marble angelfish.

What was really weird was I thought gouramis where the hardiest fish among the ones I had. Yet the blue rams and neons are still going strong, and are said to be the most sensitive to water quality.

My neighbour was feeing them every 3 days so that they wouldnt produce too much waste as the tank wasn't going to get cleaned for a month.

What else should I have done to ensure their survival. I'm very dissapointed that I lost my poor fishies.

 

[colesea]

How well fed and robust were they before you left, and when was your last water change? Most healthy and well fed tropicals can go at least two weeks without food, so feeding every three days, while might keep them a bit hungry, is better than starving them for a month. The question would be is how much were they being fed? Feeding too much would create waste and an ammonia spike, thus killing fish. Feeding too little would starve the fish, especially those who could not compete against larger, more aggressive individuals who food-hog.

Next time you are going to go away, try investing in a good, automatic feeder. Some of the higher tech models allow you to regulate food amounts so there is no over-feeding. Then all your neighbor would have to do is add food to the hopper instead of directly to the tank, therefore touching nothing that could cause disturbance of the tank. I would also not recommend leaving your fish tank for longer than two weeks. I just got back from a two week absence myself and boy and I glad to see my fish again. Even though my dad was more worried about them than I was, and he stayed home, I wouldn't even let him feed the fish while I was gone, much less attempt any major maintance.
~~Colesea