Need advice to go from 2 feedings to 1

[nenuphar]

Hi,

We are going on vacation for a few days and will have somebody come over feed the fish and the cat. I ususally feed the fish twice a day but the petsitter can only stop by once a day. I will give the petsitter a pillbox with fish food inside so I can control how much he puts in the tank.

Do I just double the amount I normally give, i.e. combine the two feedings into one? This will give my fish the same amount of food per day.

Or do I give them slightly less food, as the fish don't finish the food after 2 min. Except I tried that for a couple of days and one died. My tank is also understocked, which might be the problem.

I will be gone for 9 days and there are 13 cichlids in a 125g tank, half of them under 2in and the other half over 5in.

Thanks for any advice!

 

[BBradbury]

Vacation Tank Care

Hi,

We are going on vacation for a few days and will have somebody come over feed the fish and the cat. I ususally feed the fish twice a day but the petsitter can only stop by once a day. I will give the petsitter a pillbox with fish food inside so I can control how much he puts in the tank.

Do I just double the amount I normally give, i.e. combine the two feedings into one? This will give my fish the same amount of food per day.

Or do I give them slightly less food, as the fish don't finish the food after 2 min. Except I tried that for a couple of days and one died. My tank is also understocked, which might be the problem.

I will be gone for 9 days and there are 13 cichlids in a 125g tank, half of them under 2in and the other half over 5in.

Thanks for any advice!

Hello nenu...

We go on vacation for a couple of weeks at a time and a couple of weeks before we leave, I feed the fish a little more and a little more often. Two days prior to leaving, I stop feeding and do a larger than normal water change. The fish live off their small fat reserves and I come home to a clean tank.

Fish can easily go a couple of weeks without food. In their natural living areas, they're lucky to eat once or twice a week.

When we leave, we have someone check the tanks to make sure everything is running and leave the number of someone who knows something of aquariums. I never let anyone feed the fish, but that's just me. If you have someone who knows tanks, then that's a different story.

B

 

[nenuphar]

Wow, cichlids can go two weeks without food! I have read one week was usually ok, but I did not know they could go that long. I will start frequent feedings then. Thanks for the tip about leaving the phone number of someone who knows about fish keeping.

 

[Rivers2k]

I typically have someone stop by every other day. I use ziplock snack bags and detailed instructions. The pillbox is an even better idea. I would feed the normal amount of food for 1 feeding. You don't want extra food polluting the water.

Fish only need to eat every few day most people who keep fish feed once daily with a fast day. Cichlids are always begging for food so it looks like they are starving but they aren't.

I wont go more than 3 days without a feeding. A couple weeks seems a bit extreme but I guess it works for B.