“I believe the worst way to care for fish during a vacation is to entrust them to someone else–no matter how experienced and dedicated they may be,” says Lee Harper. In most cases, bigger fish will survive without feeding for a week or two, but caring for fry, especially if you have a number of tanks with fry in them, is another story. To solve this problem, Lee “was forced to find a passive, non-threatening way to feed fry” while he was away for up to several weeks at a time.
Lee’s answer proved simple, and has proven its worth over a period of years. “I simply put a small piece of leaf lettuce (Romaine, Buttercrunch, etc.) along with some pond or ramshorn snails in each shoebox containing fry.” It’s a simple system: the snails eat the lettuce, rotifers feed on their droppings, and the fry feed on the rotifers. “This provides a change in diet which is beneficial to the fish; I’m resolved to take more ‘vacations’ from feeding … even when I am not away from home.”
— G.C.K.A. Newsletter, September 1999