The six things two minutes can genuinely cover
A short daily visit works because a healthy tank changes slowly, and the few things that can go wrong fast are all visible at a glance. Your neighbour is not doing maintenance; they are scanning for change. The scan has a fixed order: count the fish and watch how they swim, look for the filter's outflow ripple, check the heater light is on, read the thermometer, glance at the water level against the mark you taped on the glass, and look at the floor and cabinet for drips. Taught in that order, the whole round genuinely takes about two minutes, and nothing important is left to guesswork.
Walk the round together before you go
Do not brief over the phone or by text alone. Have your neighbour stand at the tank with you and do the check while you narrate what normal looks like for this aquarium: how the outflow usually sounds, where the thermometer normally sits, which fish hides behind the wood and only appears at feeding. Let them find the shy fish themselves so they do not report a false missing fish on day one. Point out the plug strip and the filter intake, and agree on the one thing they may touch, the light switch if the timer fails, and everything they leave alone.
The card that lives on the tank
Tape a short card beside the aquarium so the routine survives a busy day or a substitute visitor. It lists the scan order in plain words, the feeding instruction if this check includes food, one measured portion only, never a second because the fish still look hungry, and the two alarms that mean phone you immediately: the filter silent or running dry, and fish gathered at the surface gasping. Add what to do while they wait for your reply, unplug nothing except a noisy, empty filter, and top up nothing. A card written for your tank beats a page of general aquarium advice every time.
What a neighbour should never be asked to do
Keep water changes, filter cleaning, medication and equipment repairs off the brief entirely. Those are the tasks where a well-meaning helper does the most damage, rinsing filter media under a tap or helpfully scrubbing algae that the tank's balance depends on. If a fish dies while you are away, the kind instruction is simple: net it out if they are comfortable, put it in a bag in the freezer, and tell you the same day. Make clear that reporting a loss earns thanks, not blame, or you risk a helper who hides problems until you return.
Keeping the brief where your neighbour can find it
Paper on the glass works until someone tidies it away, so keep the same brief attached to the tank's own details rather than loose in a kitchen drawer. With a KinsLe Care Pass, the neighbour you have chosen gets the two-minute check, the feeding portion and the alarm list as one clear handover, and you can update it from wherever you are if the plan changes mid-trip.