Norman's lampeyes are peaceful schooling killifish, each barely longer than a fingernail, with a neon-blue eye-spot that catches the light as the group turns. Their small size shapes every holiday decision. They jump through gaps that look impossibly narrow, they need food fine enough for very small mouths, and a school of them can be overfed into a water-quality problem by one generous stranger. Arrange the tank so it mostly runs itself, then give a checker a short, exact list: lid on, light on its timer, one portion only, and a headcount of those bright eyes at every visit.
Secure the lid and keep the light routine boring
Fit or check the lid before anything else, paying attention to the cut-outs around filter pipes and cables, because a startled lampeye aims for exactly those gaps. Cover spare openings with fine mesh rather than leaving them for ventilation. Put the aquarium light on a timer set to the photoperiod the fish already know, and tell your checker not to switch lights on late at night to show a friend the tank. Sudden bright light in a dark room is the classic trigger for a lampeye to leap, and a calm, predictable day length also keeps the school feeding confidently while the house is quieter than usual.
Portion food for very small mouths
Divide the holiday food into daily portions before you go, using the fine fry food, micro pellets, or crushed flake the school already eats, and label each portion with its day. Lampeyes feed at the surface and midwater, taking small items quickly, so a portion is finished in a couple of minutes and anything still drifting after that was too much. Warn your checker, in writing, that the fish will always look hungry and will always gather hopefully at the glass. That begging display is normal schooling behaviour, not a request for a second portion, and doubling up in a small lampeye tank shows up as cloudy water within days.
Brief the checker on the school headcount
Ask for a simple count rather than a general look. A healthy lampeye school hovers and darts together, eye-spots flashing, with no fish sitting alone at the bottom or gasping under the lid. One fish isolating itself, a missing fish alongside an open lid gap, or white cloudiness in the water are the three things worth a photo and a message to you the same day. Leave a small net and a jug of conditioned water for top-ups to a marked line, and explain that no water change is expected on a short trip unless you ask for one by phone after seeing a photo.
Leave the group, plants, and filter untouched
Do not add new lampeyes just before a holiday to make the school look fuller, and do not move the floating plants or tall stems the fish shelter among, because a replanted tank unsettles a shy school for days. Rinse filter media only if it is genuinely due, and do it a week ahead in removed tank water, never the day before departure. Your goal is a tank the fish experience as entirely ordinary while you are gone: same dawn, same dusk, same shelter, same small meal arriving once a day from a hand they will learn is harmless.
A handover sized for a tiny fish
Write the checker one short card: lid latched, timer left alone, one labelled portion, count the bright eyes, top up only to the line. Show them the portion size in person, because 'a pinch' means something far larger in an unfamiliar hand than it does in yours. Tiny fish leave no margin for generous interpretation, so the kindest holiday arrangement is precision written down where it will be read, at the tank, in the moment. Keeping those exact portions and lid checks in one place your sitter can open at feeding time is exactly what KinsLe's Care Pass is for, passing a trusted person temporary access to the lampeyes' routine until you are home again.