Leaving fish without food over vacation

[madasafish]

Hi all,

Sorry I've been so distant from the board recently. I've been in England celebrating my parents' anniversary with them. This plays into the short story I'm including here.

When I left for England on the 24th, I made sure to clean out the fish tank that I maintain for a professor I know. Because of a recent automatic feeder malfunction, the tank was going through tough times, and ammonia had risen above 0 (the fish are fed exclusively by automatic feeder, as the people who work there are unwilling to feed them; I can only visit the tank 1-2 times a week). On the 23rd, I changed 50% of the water, and sucked out all extra food that had made its way into the tank. I also decided to close off the automatic feeder for the next day until I left so as to reduce the amount of potential pollutants to the tank. Somehow, I forgot to open the feeder the next day: no food would be entering the tank while I was away in England.

When I returned to the tank yesterday (2 weeks later) I found, to my surprise, that the fish had not been fed once in my absence!! However, the fish were all alive and well. Keep in mind these are Lake Malawi Mbuna cichlids, so they eat algae from the rocks, but still... I was amazed to have (unintentionally) tested the conventional wisdom about leaving fish without food for long periods of time, and to have found that great aquarists--who say that fish can do without food for over 2 weeks--are absolutely right!

So, that's a lesson to all fretters out there. If you're leaving for a week and absolutely cannot find somebody to feed your fish for you, the fish will be perfectly fine if they're healthy to begin with. I'm sure that some exceptions apply with more sensitive fish, but IME, this remarkable fact is absolutely true. I'd say that 2 weeks is pushing it, but take comfort in the fact that fish are very metabolically adaptable.

So to all of you planning on taking a trip soon, Merry, and Worry-Free, Vacationing,
Jon

 

[Todd2]

2 weeks, thats pretty incredible. Glad everybody made it through.

 

[shawmutt]

If you're leaving for a week and absolutely cannot find somebody to feed your fish for you

Whenever I leave for a vacation, I actually make it a point to tell whoever is watching the house--don't feed the fish! I ask the person to look at the tank and make sure it's not blowing up, but other than that, leave it alone. I find getting someone else involved in my tank is a recipe for disaster.

 

[webmoose]

Welcome back Madasafish

I've done the week at a time no feeding quite a few times with success. I had some live plant in there that I figured if they really got hungry they at least had a food source to fall back on.

Mooooose

 

[Megalofyia]

If you're leaving for a week and absolutely cannot find somebody to feed your fish for you

Whenever I leave for a vacation, I actually make it a point to tell whoever is watching the house--don't feed the fish! I ask the person to look at the tank and make sure it's not blowing up, but other than that, leave it alone. I find getting someone else involved in my tank is a recipe for disaster.

I do this too.. my mom has watched the tank a few times and really kind of panics at the idea of them not getting fed all week so if she starts hyperventalating about it then I'll get frozen cubes and tell her that in the middle of the week she cangive them ONE.. and only one cube of food. This seems to work for all involved.

 

[Pufferpunk]

Why do those folks even have fish???

 

[TankGirl]

Welcome back, Madasafish!

I'm glad you posted your story, and it illustrates what I have always suspected. I'd much rather the fish not get fed than have a tank disaster from overfeeding.

That's a good question, though Pufferpunk - if they did not even think of feeding the fish during your absence, it makes you wonder how interested they are in the fish, other than a lovely piece of living art.

 

[Guest]

I too, do'nt let house setters feed my fish while I'm gone most of the time, for fear of overfeeding. For minimum feeding I'll have 1 frozen cube tossed into the tank every three days. IMO clean, stable water is far more important.

 

[madasafish]

If you do have a house sitter feeding the fish, you can always take a pillbox or small bags and take small pinches of food and put each pinch in a compartment or bag. This solves the issue of how much they should feed the fish each day.

Yeah, I know... Well, the whole issue with feeding is a complicated one. The professor who wanted me to start the tank up for him is a bit (understatement) of a spendthrift with the department's money. They get really angry at him for spending money on this tank (*really* nice 100 gallon Tenecor tank with built-in filtration system that cost over $1000) and on the fish/decor etc. So, they've all sort of boycotted the tank. They all like it, but aren't willing to lift a finger to help with it... Makes my life much tougher!!

 

[Menagerie]

This makes sense. When you think of a fish's evolvutionary history, they did not eat everyday. My guess is if the fish got really HUNGRY, one of them would no longer be around.

 

[dud]

Golly Menagerie, you're scaring the *beep* out of me. Better make sure my tank lid is closed when I go to bed. The attack of the neon tetras!!! or... someone getting nibbled to nothing by otocinclus? Ghost shrimp cleaning someone to the bones? dan dan dan~ well I never thought a little doll such as chucky would make such a traumatic memory to me.

 

[Upscale]

Feeders

Just leave em be .In my experience fish can go w/o food for a while.The vacation feeders are a joke,unless you want to purposely kill yor fish. I had a very healthy 55 gal tank and used one of those feeders,a week later what a nightmare,fish dead ammonia off the charts! Its has been 1 1/2 months and I'am slowly getting my tank back to normal.