Going on Vacation

[Richalds]

I currently have 1 red swordtail and 2 neons (after a bad cycling incident) and I will be going on vacation shortly. The fish would be without food for 5 days. Is that ok?

Should I buy an electronic feeder? or one of those blocks that dissolves food slowly?


Also, should I feed them a bit more then usual the day before leaving?

[rosh]

I advise you to buy the electronic feeder because for your vacation, I have used thesed and trusted them. The Blocks make a mess after they dissolve where they were dropped. The feeder can be used as a by feeder when you are at your house. When you are at your house you need to put your feeder down low, because you need to feed your fish when you are at your house to watch them how they eat and which are meeker and don't get enough food. When you are on vacation you need to put it higher, but not too high because that would be over feeding your fish. You need to "experiment" with your feeder to get it adjusted before you go on vacation and when you come back. As long as you have your feeder turned up you don't need to feed your fish a bit more before you leave.

If you do choose the block way you need to cut it up to fit your tank and 5 days and how many fish you have. You only have 3 small fish and if you buy the 14 day sized block you need to cut it up in smaller pieces to fit a 5 day schedule. Why not just wait 14 days untill you feed your fish? Because the bigger the block the bigger the mess left behind. When you come back from your vacation you need to clean all the rest of the shell up that made a mess. If you go the block way you don't need to feed them a bit more before you leave either.

[kimmers318]

Neither is really necessary, fish can go quite awhile without being fed, which helps keep any waste from building. My fish went 4 days over July 4th, and although hubby stopped by several times to make sure noone was floating, he doesn't feed my fish because I have too many different things I feed with. Also, my platies, and goldfish I had in the (way) past, would pick at the feeder block until it was gone, destroying the purpose of a long term feeding block.....it was gone in a day or so! I have also heard horror stories of the feeders getting blocked up due to the moisture in the air causing the flake food to clump and not being able to be dropped.

[rosh]

I have also heard horror stories of the feeders getting blocked up due to the moisture in the air causing the flake food to clump and not being able to be dropped.


This is as true as it gets! I have had my feeders clogged because of moisture and yes it isn't realy necessary to have an feeder for a 4 day vacation. but if you are gone for longer you might take into consideratons of a way of feeding your fish

[modda]

now how would you do it for oscars my oscars and festae are pigs when it comes to food so i know if i stuck a block in there they would just eat it how would you go about feeding them on holidays

[William]

How long will you be gone?

[modda]

i dont know i was only talking hypothetically but say a fortnight

[MagickFish]

I used the bloks from I think Tera in my aquarium whenI went away, and they did not make a mess, and the fish was well fed and happy.

[kimmers318]

The absolute best solution in my book is a trusted friend/neighbor.....measure out your feedings, label them and ask them to drop them in once a day. We have a wonderful neighbor who does do this for us when we leave the dogs home (we don't have her come over for just the fish), but we did cut back on the amount of food so that there wouldn't be any water issues. And then make sure you bring them back a souvenir!

[William]

Oscars and other large/adult fish can go a week without food provided they are in good condition before your trip. However if you go away for a forthnight it is best to feed them atleasst a couple of times during that time even if they likely would survive that to.

The best option might be to ask someone you know drop by your house a couple of times as kimmers suggest. Another alt is to by an automatic feeder.

[William]

Or stocking your tank with feeder fish before you go.

[kitejumper]

Hi all.
I am a new to keeping an aquarium and have a noob question!
I have a small tank 4.9 us gallons capacity in which I keep 5 neon teras and two bottom feeders. I have added a small air pump on the right hand side of the tank along side the filter inlet. The filter outlet deposits on the left hand side of the tank... Ph is currently 7.5 and nitrates are all in acceptable limits.
The problem is that I am going away and have been testing out these fish feeding blocks that will feed the tank for 3 – 7 days at a time. I have popped one in the tank but it just doesn’t dissolve to release the food. On immersion it bubbles and looked like its doing the job but when I returned a few day later there was virtually no change and the fish were looking hungry. The instructions are simple enough but any reason why this is?

Cheers

Tim

[kimmers318]

Could be because those feeder blocks are made up of a lot of crap that the fish don't eat just to hold it together. You wouldn't be able to get a slow dissolving solid block of flake without some type of substance to keep it "glued" so to speak. Your fish were not hungry enough to care to eat the inferior food that was in the block, or they ate so little it wasn't noticeable. IMO feeder blocks are a waste of money unless you are looking at feeding a snail tank or some such thing. If your fish are in good condition they can go quite a long time, some up to 2 weeks, without food. We regularly don't feed our fish just about every weekend in the summer while we are camping, they are fine. My dwarf puffers are probably the worst at giving me the "how dare you do this to me" look, but they are always fine. If you watch your fish you will see that they are forever pecking at things in the aquarium finding bits of algae, food and probably microscopic organisms we can't see.

[Glasstapper]

back in December, I was going to be gone for a whole month and only be back for a total of two days about midway through the month. I bought a feeder, and it worked great for the first two weeks. I had adjusted the food so that only a fraction of what I normally fed would be given (think of it as rations). So when I got in, they needed a water change and a good feeding of something other than flake. I left again two days later for another two weeks. When I got back, the feeder was still just as full as when I had left it. Apparently the batteries had died much earlier than they were supposed to, and my fish had gone two whole weeks without food. My water quality was great, my fish were fine, and after an intial freak out by me, I realized that the feeder was probably not even necessary in the first place.

[Gelo_USA]

I have an automatic feeder.. cnt remenber the brand.. I used it for some days while I was home watching so I could test it and after some time all the flakes got like CLOGGED because of humidity and another thing is u have to BREAK THEM into veryyyyy small pieces almost like DUST so it can get dispensed by the feeder....
one thing tht did work well was putting pellets in the feeder but it still got clogged because of the humidity...

[Chrona]

Best automatic feeder: neighbors :)

[kitejumper]

HI
Thanks for advice all. In the end I left the block in the tank over the vacation to see what happened to it. My neighbour popped in every other day to feed the fish once as I was not sure it was working. On my return the feeder block looked like it had changed shape and there were what looked like dandelion seeds on the surface of the block. You can see what I mean by this pic
http://fohn.net/dandelion-pictures/folklore.html . So would that be how a feeding block would look like?
Cheers
Kite