Question about feeding while away

[fishes2]

Hello everyone. I did a bunch of searches but couldn't come up with anything relating to feeding fish while on vacation.

My spring break is coming up in a few weeks, and I wanted to know what the best way to feed my fish was, while I was gone.

I looked at those pyramids at my LFS, but I wasn't sure if that was the ONLY option, or if there were others available. It seems to me that putting that thing in my tank would cause some serious overfeeding, and I don't want to do that, if possible.

I will be gone for about 10 days, so it is a pretty long vacation.

Again sorry if this has been brought up, and if so could you just link me to the thread?

Thanks in advance

 

[the_dougie]

what fish do you have? some fish can survive several weeks without food. If you have any live plants, if the fish are really hungry they can nibble on those. Another idea is to turn down the heater on your tank. lower heat = lower metabolism = fish surviving longer with no food.

 

[Kasakato]

Dont use those feeders! They have plaster in them and will really mess up your tank. Fish should be able to go 10 days without food, but if you can get someone to feed them once or twice while you are gone, that would be better. If you really feel the need to keep your fish feed get a auto feeder. The kind that uses batteries, not the pyramids. I use this: http://www.bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=22595;category_id=2911;pcid1=;pcid2=.
And look its on sale, so why not just get one, lol.

 

[adgolde]

you can buy an automatic feeder, there is one that can feed for up to 14 days, it might cost you about 20-30 bucks though, but thats the only thing i can think of, good luck

 

[fishes2]

well i just have some whitecloud minnows and ghost shrimp (5 gallon tank)

so theres really not alot to worry about in the tank.

It would be nice if someone could come in and feed them once, but I dont think thats gonna happen, since all of my roomatse will be on break as well.


I really don't want to pay 35 bucks right now (im a poor college kid hehe)

I really didnt think those pyramids were that good, it just seemed like a shady idea.

I'll have to see if anyone is going to be around during break and can come in and do a feeding.

The minnow are pretty hardy fish, I bet they can go a few days without eating, no problem.

 

[fishes2]

Thank you all, by the way, for answering. I appreciate it.

 

[the_dougie]

ghost shrimp rarely get a decent meal in the wilderness. Both the shrimp and minnows would eat plants if you have any.

...and if the shrimp really got hungry they would resort to cannibalism...so i doubt you'll come home to find many fish corpses one way or another

 

[pjfish]

Petsmart has an auto feeder that runs on batteries and costs about $15. It's called Daily Double or something like that. The problem is it feeds twice a day whether you want to or not, but you can adjust the amt of the food dispensed. I bought one about a month ago, but haven't used it on the aquarium yet. I've just been running it on a counter top to see how dependable and consistent it is. So far, the batteries are still going strong after about a month. I used flake food and turned the amt down real low and that's still going strong, too. I noticed that the food amt seems more consistent if the food drum is at least 1/4 full or more.

Has anyone used this product or something similar? any helpful hints or suggestions? I'm trying to plan ahead for vacations also.

 

[mister ben]

Dont use those feeders! They have plaster in them and will really mess up your tank.

Can you or anybody else be more specific as to HOW they will "mess up my tank." The way I see it, if it's only going to make some slightly undesirable conditions that can be remedied upon return home I would rather go that route than not feeding at all. This is assuming that the negative effects would not be fatal.