A tank label for a sitter carries three things only: the feeding amount in plain measures, the light-timer times, and one phone number. The label is not the place for the tank's history, its test results or your full routine; it is the card a stranger reads standing in front of the glass, possibly worried, possibly in a hurry, and it has to work in one glance. Anything beyond the three things competes with them for attention, and the item that loses that competition is usually the feeding amount — the one instruction whose misreading does damage fastest in a small, closed system of water.
The Label, Line by Line
Write the label as three short lines, each doing one job. The feeding line reads: Feed — one level scoop of flakes from the tub beside the tank, once each morning. The light line reads: Lights — on at 8 in the morning, off at 9 in the evening, on the timer; leave the timer as it is. The help line reads: If in doubt, phone this number first — followed by one phone number, written in full and checked digit by digit before you leave. Read the finished label aloud once as a stranger would, cold, with no knowledge of your shorthand. Any word you have to explain is a word to replace, and any line you stumble over gets shortened until it reads cleanly first time.
Plain Measures a Stranger Cannot Misread
Feeding amounts fail in the translation from your habits to another person's hands, so give the amount in a measure that exists physically beside the tank. One level scoop means the scoop itself, filled and levelled, not heaped and not shaken down, and naming the tub it comes from stops a sitter reaching for a different food entirely. Never write a pinch, a little, some flakes or the usual amount: each of those is a different quantity in different hands, and fish pay for the largest interpretation. Once each morning closes the other common gap, the second kind-hearted feed given later by someone who thought the fish looked hungry. If the tank holds several foods, the label still names one feeding instruction in full; variety is your job when you return, not a sitter's puzzle.
Placement and Legibility
Stick the label on the tank itself, at eye level, where the sitter stands to feed — not on a cupboard door, not in a folder across the room, and not on the lid where it lifts away from the reader. Write it large, in thick dark letters on a pale card, with space between the three lines so each can be found separately. Protect the card from splashes and condensation with a clear cover or write it to survive damp, and check it from a step back under the room's ordinary light, including in the evening if visits happen then. A label that can only be read crouching, squinting or by phone torch will eventually be read wrongly or not read at all.
One Number, and Nothing Competing With It
The phone line carries one number only. Two numbers invite a decision at exactly the moment a sitter should be dialling, and a number belonging to someone who cannot help wastes the call entirely. Choose the person who can actually talk a sitter through this tank, write that single number in full, and put the words 'if in doubt, phone' in front of it so ringing feels instructed rather than excessive. Keep every other note off the label: extra warnings, feeding exceptions and household instructions belong in the longer handover you leave elsewhere, where they can be read sitting down. When you prepare the sitter's access, KinsLe's Care Pass can carry these identical three lines as the heart of the temporary routine, so what a sitter reads on a phone at home matches the card waiting by the fish.