Presents for Pets

Following on from pets as presents, I thought it worthwhile to mention about gift giving for your pets this festive season. Some pets are easier to buy for than others, especially if you’ve known your pet for a long time.

Lotus and Zhi-Zhi had an early Christmas present of their Repashy Soilent Green food. It wasn’t intended given the freezer was switched off by one of my housemates so I lost all of my frozen food (for me and the fish!), but it happened. I’ve also bought them a couple of new ornaments – a small fake plant and something that looks like Roman ruins. I think they’ll enjoy it. I was thinking about live plants but given how hectic my life is right now, and that they’re in a storage tub, I don’t think the plants would get enough light and it’s worth waiting until I’m more settled.

For Gerald the Syrian hamster, I bought him a wooden seesaw, a snuggle pouch, some Rotastak “chocolate” drops and some dog chews. I bought the dog chews because he doesn’t like wooden toys to gnaw on and I was advised that something with flavour, like a dog biscuit, would encourage him. He’s had one dog chew already and he’s clearly been enjoying it. I also bought him a child’s toothbrush with lovely soft bristles. He’s not long-haired so doesn’t need helping with his grooming, but I tried it on him last night and he actually sat still for a few minutes and seemed quite contented.

For my boyfriend’s cats, I bought some Dreamies treats. He had just bought them some catnip so there was no point in getting any more of that. Bertie and Mina love catnip! They also love cat treats and cuddles. They’re about four years old now, and don’t seem to play as much as when they were kittens. I didn’t know them when they were kittens but they’re more about the chilling out.

The important thing when you’re buying presents for your pets is to make sure whatever your gift is, it is safe for your pet. Actual chocolate, for example, is hazardous and should be avoided. You might also want to consider quality. Something from a pound shop or dollar store might make for false economy if it falls apart quickly or your pet ends up choking on it. Gerald loves the two hanging toys I picked up at a pound shop for him (or he did for about five minutes)  but I know these are pet safe. I wrote a couple of posts about entertaining your fish and doing so just in time for Christmas which may be useful.

But here’s another thought. Your pet is lucky to have you even thinking about giving them a gift at this time of year. What about those animals who don’t have a home? Could you donate some money to a local charity or shelter rather than spoil your pet further? Perhaps  you could sponsor an animal?

Waiting for my fish food to arrive

There’s nothing worse than waiting anxiously for the post. I’m getting desperate for my fish food to arrive because it’s been nearly two weeks since the freezer was turned off and poor Lotus and Zhi-Zhi must be getting sick of algae wafers. I mixed things up a little bit this evening with some steamed broccoli. I think they appreciated the change as it’s been a very long time since they had any fresh vegetables.

The reason I didn’t go out and buy pellets was because I worry for Lotus and the likelihood of her dropsy returning. The next few weeks will be stressful enough for her as I have to move house. At this point I don’t know if I’m moving five hours away or twenty minutes up the road. I need to keep things relatively stable for her and a decent quality food, rather than pellets will help that.

I finally bit the bullet and ordered the Repashy Soilent Green. I hear great things about it so I’m eager to see how my fish enjoy it. I hear it smells really badly when it’s setting but it’ll be worth it. It also means that I don’t have to make and waste too much before the big move.

Fingers crossed it arrives soon!

Oh blast!

At some point today, the fridge freezer was switched off. Not only have I lost all the food I bought yesterday but I have lost all of my home made gel food! This comes at a time when I can sorely afford my own food, let alone that of my fish. Making homemade food sounds cheap but it really isn’t. Vegetables in the UK are so expensive that it would add up quickly. I can’t even just go out and buy pellet food because I’m so concerned about Lotus and her dropsy.

I had been meaning to move onto Repashy Soilent Green for a while but it looks like that move is coming a lot sooner than expected. Meanwhile, it looks like my poor girls are on a fast!

Holidays and pet-sitting

Holidays and leaving your fish can be a worrying time for people who love their goldfish. The truth is that it needn’t be.

Going away for a couple of days, even a week isn’t a problem. Your fish will not starve while you are gone. Their digestion is different to that of some mammals and while it may seem unkind, it can actually be beneficial to them!

A fasting day once a week is actually recommended, although you should be prepared for them to keep following you with their eyes around the tank and beg for food even more than they would normally. Fasting days or occasionally going away for a few days helps them clean out their digestive tract and helps avoid constipation. Over feeding is very problematic in general, and while I wouldn’t recommend chronically under-feeding your fish, a week or two is fine.

Less food = less poop = less ammonia in the water. The less ammonia in the tank, the less you have to worry about a build up of nasty toxins in the water while you are gone.

Over Christmas, I went home to my family for ten days, leaving my trusty housemate in charge of fish care. I had deliberately stocked up on live plants to try and combat the harmful toxins in the water (which, helpfully, are fertiliser for these plants!) and had invested in some algae wafers as treats for my fish. Ela, my housemate, was left with a typed up A4 sheet of paper, detailing the fish and how to look after them while I was away. In reality, all I asked her to do was pop an algae wafer in every three days or so just to keep them ticking over. In particular, I asked her to give them an algae wafer on Christmas Day as I felt rotten about leaving my poor fish! Yes, this makes me a bit of a sap and I’m fairly certain that my fish don’t celebrate Christmas, but it’s a day for being with one’s family.

Before I left, I did a major water change. At this point I was still using buckets to change my water. If the bucket held about 14 litres of water and my tank was 120 litres, I must have walked up and down the stairs to my bedroom at least six times to ensure the water was clean.This was before a five hour drive!

Ela is very slight and I couldn’t and wouldn’t bring myself to ask her to do water changes! Popping a little food in every few days wasn’t a big ask, but heavy water changes by bucket would have been.

Immediately on my return, I checked on the fish who were very pleased to see me and quite happy and healthy. Ela had done a fantastic job with them! I had arrived home a couple of days early because the weather was set to be very bad over the next few days. We had had substantial flooding in Yorkshire and I didn’t want to be cut off from Kent by any more flooding! With this in mind, I didn’t do a massive water change immediately upon my return because it was already so late and I was absolutely shattered from another five hour drive. Ten days with limited food wasn’t too much of an issue. Had they been fed their normal amount, I might have been more worried. Instead, I did a water change as soon as I woke up the following morning.

If I had any tips for going away on holiday for a couple of weeks they would be this:

1. Ensure that you trust whomever you leave in charge of your fish.
2. Write detailed instructions.
3. Do a large water change before you leave, and as soon as you get back.
4. Have pre-prepared amounts of food for your trusty pet-sitter to feed them. Perhaps pellets in those pill boxes which are marked by day would be helpful? Algae wafers or pre-prepared Repashy Soilent Green are also a good idea.
5. It is possible to buy automatic food dispensers but some have mixed reviews. Some will just throw food out as and when they feel like it, or not at all.
6. Seachem Prime or Seachem Safe help detoxify ammonia, nitrate and nitrite by bonding them with other elements so they are less toxic for the fish. It isn’t a long term solution to water changes, but makes the water healthier. It can be added by the pet-sitter to reduce the need for water changes until you return.

As it turned out, Ela and the goldfish really took to one another. There is now talk about moving the fish tank down into the living room so that she can enjoy them too. She had never understood my attraction to goldfish but now, having spent time with mine, is as interested in their well-being as I am.As a result of fish-sitting for me, she even wanted to get her own fish – but more on that another time.