Going away for 2 weeks

[Binditheaxolotl]

At the end of this school year me and my family are taking a trip for 2 weeks to celebrate a graduation. While I’m away, ill have my axolotl in a tank in the basement so she is cool. i have 2 filters running on her tank, a 40 gal sponge filter and 50 gal regular filter. All though we have a lovely and experienced pet keeper, who used to be a vet tech, i dont neccesarily trust her with water changes. Is my axolotl ok to go for 2 weeks without a water change? I’ve done it before and shes been fine. I’ll have my petkeeper add prime daily in case anything spikes. Im afraid i dont have a better option. She’ll be kept at 65 in the basement with minimal light as to not stress her out. Any tips?

 

[wolfen]

At the end of this school year me and my family are taking a trip for 2 weeks to celebrate a graduation. While I’m away, ill have my axolotl in a tank in the basement so she is cool. i have 2 filters running on her tank, a 40 gal sponge filter and 50 gal regular filter. All though we have a lovely and experienced pet keeper, who used to be a vet tech, i dont neccesarily trust her with water changes. Is my axolotl ok to go for 2 weeks without a water change? I’ve done it before and shes been fine. I’ll have my petkeeper add prime daily in case anything spikes. Im afraid i dont have a better option. She’ll be kept at 65 in the basement with minimal light as to not stress her out. Any tips?

do you do daily poop and excess food clean, if so you might get issues with spikes unless your pet sitter does the same routine as well, as your filtration won't be able to cope with the sudden increase in waste, if on the other hand all waste is left until it is cleaned weekly then it will be fine to be left for a fortnight.
the easiest thing to do is put a load of ghost/river shrimp in the tank for her to eat over the period although you will have to make sure that the filter inlets are shrimp proofed to prevent any shrimps getting caught, dieing then rotting into the filter, the shrimp will also help towards cleaning the waste as well.
65°f is a bit warm though and could do with bringing it down a bit. lights shouldn't be too much of an issue provided hides/caves are provided for day time resting/sleeping.

 

[Binditheaxolotl]

do you do daily poop and excess food clean, if so you might get issues with spikes unless your pet sitter does the same routine as well, as your filtration won't be able to cope with the sudden increase in waste, if on the other hand all waste is left until it is cleaned weekly then it will be fine to be left for a fortnight.
the easiest thing to do is put a load of ghost/river shrimp in the tank for her to eat over the period although you will have to make sure that the filter inlets are shrimp proofed to prevent any shrimps getting caught, dieing then rotting into the filter, the shrimp will also help towards cleaning the waste as well.
65°f is a bit warm though and could do with bringing it down a bit. lights shouldn't be too much of an issue provided hides/caves are provided for day time resting/sleeping.

No, i don’t. I leave all waste until the end of the week, and i’ve been slowly increasing the days between water changes over the past month or two. Annoyingly, all the pet stores around me are sold out of all shrimp. I don’t know what that’s about. To have them shipped in, theyd come late next week and i wouldn’t have enough time to quarantine them. I have a steady supply of night crawlers that i buy from bait stores. I usually feed her these so i think i will continue due to the lack of shrimp. As for the temp, I’ll give her a fan as well so i can lower that a bit. Thank you lots for your advice! Most people i’ve asked on other forums have just told me don’t go which hasn’t been very helpful

 

[michael]

Just have your pet sitter feed once or twice a week and do nothing else. The more they do the more opportunity their is for something to go wrong. Don't feed heavy or add anything new to your routine.

 

[Binditheaxolotl]

Just have your pet sitter feed once or twice a week and do nothing else. The more they do the more opportunity their is for something to go wrong. Don't feed heavy or add anything new to your routine.

Ok, i will do that. Thank you everyone for the advice!