Vacation ... Need Advice!

[Fishy]

We are going on a 11 day vacation and I am going out to get an automatic feeder but I have a few questions. When I put it on my tank (it's a hex tank) and with the way the top is set up I will have to leave it open to accommodate the feeder. I am worried some fish will jump ship while I'm gone. Any ideas of what to do or what you have done in the past? Also, do you put your light fixture on a timer?

Thanks for the help.

 

[fishfreek]

All my lights on my tanks are on timers. Sure beats turning them on/off all the time.

Honestly for an 11 day trip if you feed fairly good prior to the trip they fish will be fine without feedings for those 11 days.

You could pickup what they call 'egg crate' from the hardware store and cut it to fit your opening. This egg crate is a plastic grating that has 1/2" square holes.

 

[millym]

we just came back from 2 weeks away to find......horror of all horrors our auto feeder had got stuck & the timer on our lights hadnt worked either. oh me gawd!!!! one tank full of very depressed looking fishies. 8O we felt terrible!!!! we had tested it before leaving but i think we overfilled the auto feeder & the light timer just packed in for some reason. so my advice would be test test test - get it all set up & running a least for a few days/week before you go & then just top up the auto feeder. we were v lucky we only lost 1 neon & a yoyo(bad enough but it could have been so so much worse) our fish perked up very quickly with a bit of light & food & within a day or 2 all looked quite happy again but we just felt sooooo guilty the poor things. i know fish can survive for that long without food(obviously) but it was quite cruel for our poor things who were used to 2 feeds a day & all of a sudden ......nothing - for 2 weeks our plants looked a little raggedy but amazingly they did survive. we had left one curtain open so they would have got a little light . next time we go away we are going to set it up AGES before we go & are going to get someone to come in & check on them as well

 

[tkos]

My auto feeder works fine, but I keep it on the lowest setting. That drops just a pinch of food twice a day. On the one hand it keeps me sane knwoing that my fishies are eating but also I know that they water quality won't foul up too quickly since I won't be there to change the water. I use the Hagen auto feeder, not the digital one.

 

[Menagerie]

horror of all horrors our auto feeder had got stuck & the timer on our lights hadnt worked either. oh me gawd!!!! one tank full of very depressed looking fishies. we felt terrible!!!!

Thanks for the info--I will be testing and testing before I go away for a long period!!

 

[nikki]

food and holiday

I was told at my fish club that it's much better to leave the fish without any food for as long as 2 weeks.I didn't know but I think we project our fear of lacking food to the fish .

 

[stoneydee]

There's another problem with having to leave the tank lid open to accommodate feeders. . . especially if there is an A/C or heating vent close by - major evaporation. Fishfreek's egg-crate idea is a good one.

 

[myriam]

I just got back from 9 days away. I couldn't find somebody I trusted to come feed my fish, and I didn't have an automatic feeder. So I bit the bullet and ended up getting one of those feeder cakes, one shaped like a big scallop that said it would feed up to a 20 gallon tank for up to 10 days. When I got back my water looked pretty clear and good, and the fishies were all well and happy. I quickly did a gravel vac and a 25% water replacement, to be sure and get any gunk out of the water that the feeder cake left.

 

[Christmasfish]

Is a spotted catfish predatious?
Hello? Catfishophiles?
That is the only spanner in the "leave with no feed method" I can imagine. Someone deciding a tankmate is a good between meal snack....^_^
And if you fear an auto feeder maybe you can set it for 3 meals and have three meals worth. That way if it goes gonzo and dumps the damage is small. And it feeds them enough to be hungry but fine.
It is just guesses from me...I am always home since I got out of the army, so I don't sweat it something like that. Vacations are rare and we have serveral friends that can do a feed every other day and a 20% once a week.

 

[Allivymar]

I also used the autofeeders when I went away recently for a little over a week. tested em both; they worked fine and away we went. Came back to discover one worked great, the other didn't and one tank as never fed. Go figure. The fish in BOTH tanks were fine tho. As long as the tanks are mature, theres usually enough for fish to snack on.

As for the top of the tank, some plastic wrap, leaving the filter area and feeder area slightly open should be fine. The agitation of then water inside the filter combined with the bit of air coming in from those smaller open spaces should provide enough O2.