No help please - I'd rather do it myself!

My neighbour (last night) offered her (and her son's) services to help me in the garage, cleaning tanks and changing water.....

Geez!!... not being ungrateful, but!!... every floating leaf of a plant.... (OH!!! is this a dead fish) and every cleaned tank... (What can we move into this one)??... opening the tap to refill the water..... (Full Blast)..... Scraping off algae from the glass with a putty knife.... the silicon also gets scraped off.... Syphoning the gravel.... my fish gets sucked in......Washing the gravel...20% of the gravel gets flushed on the lawn....even wanted to use windolene to thouroughly clean the glass.....

In the meantime, I have to be discrete & eventually told them, thanks, but I've only got those five tanks to be cleaned tonight.....

Today whilst they were at work and school respectively,... I did 14 tanks in half the time that it took (with their help) to do the 5 tanks last night.....

Thanks, but no help Please......

 

Maybe give them a fairly large tank, set it up for them in their own house, and let them do their own maintenance...?

 

Eish, it sounds the same as when asking someone to watch your bonsai on holiday, no thanks, i'd rather take them with me than come back to dead overwatered/unwatered plants...

 

He! He!... Ferryman... slightly off topic here, but what the heck....

talking Bonzais... a friend of mine was sent oversees for work related issues.... He did not leave instructions, and while he was away, his gardener figured out that these little trees are not growing to their full potential because they were restricted in tose little pots, so, He took innitiative and planted all the Bonzais out in the garden....

By the time my friend returned from oversees, his "Bonzais" were all about waiste high and the gardener (who was so proud about his achievement) could not understand the wrath of my friend.......:bigsmile:

 

Oh no,Poor Gardener.
I could see him in my minds eye........................

So you see,Do educate the people around you,No Ma'am that is not the way to clean a tank,please do not plant my Bonsai in the Garden and to my Wife,do not crash my Car.




P.S.That is a lump on my head now.

 

Lol, yeah, the problem withasking people who aren't part of the hobby/any hobby to manitain it for you, is that their lack of knowledge inevitably causes harm to your hobby, be it fish dying off, restarting a cycle, vac'ing out half the plants or killing trees

I have also found tha even when leaving instructions per note, people dont follow it always, nor do they have the same drive to remember attending to it as would you. Its mostly best in fishkeeping to get your tank stable and self sustaining so that if someone needs to maintain it the most expected should be feeding a measured amount, and checking in during power outs, teach people to know how to react after a 4 hour power out and temp drop, sump overflow etc...