Feeding guppies without fouling warm water
Your guppy sheet should open with the smallest honest measure: one tiny pinch of their usual fine food, once daily, gone within a couple of minutes. Guppies crowd the surface looking starved at every visit, and a generous sitter can overload a small warm tank in two days. Write that a skipped feeding is far safer than a doubled one, and that no extra treats, flakes from another tank, or kitchen food should be added. If your guppies get a second food on certain days, portion it into labelled pots before you leave so the sitter only has to tip, not judge.
The heater and filter lines for a tropical tank
A guppy tank depends on warmth in a way a coldwater setup does not, so your sheet must tell the sitter how to confirm the heater is working. Write where the thermometer sits and the reading it should show each visit, and say to phone you if the glass feels cold or the reading drops steadily. Add that the filter should keep a gentle flow moving through the plants without battering the fish, and that a silent filter is a call-you problem, not something to strip down. Note the light timer runs itself.
Fry, plants, and the things not to tidy
Tell your guppy sitter plainly that fry are part of the tank's normal life. Baby guppies shelter in the plant thickets and dart out at feeding time, and the sitter should not try to catch, count, or move them into containers. Ask for the plants and floating cover to be left exactly as they are, even if they look untidy, because that cover is where the youngest fish survive. Also write that the lid stays closed between feedings: guppies jump, and an open lid left during a chat is how a small fish is lost.
Water top-ups written for a beginner
For a short trip, your guppy instructions can simply say to leave the water alone. For a longer absence, write the top-up version precisely: replace only what has evaporated, use water treated with conditioner, and pour it in slowly so the current does not swirl the fry out of cover. State that a full clean, a filter wash, and moving ornaments are all off the list while you are away. One cloudy-water sentence helps too: stop feeding, check the filter is running, and phone you rather than changing large amounts of water on guesswork.
Who to call and what deserves a call
Finish the sheet with how your guppies normally behave, so change stands out: males displaying near the females, the whole group rising to the surface at feeding time, and quieter resting among the leaves later. Call-you problems for a guppy tank include fish gasping at the surface, several fish hanging motionless, a cold thermometer reading, or a dead fish found two visits running. Put your number and an aquatic shop contact under that list. KinsLe Care Pass carries this guppy sheet to your sitter as one temporary handover, keeping the feeding size, heater reading, and fry warning together.