Automatic Feeder

[adeebm]

For those of you that go on vacations, what do you do with your fish? I have 4 tanks now (super Multiple Tanks Syndrome) and it just keeps increasing. I don't know if I could have someone coming in everyday and feeding 4 tanks and a cat. I've been looking at some automatic feeders, and most seem bad because they just dump a random amount of food. But theres this Fish Mate F14 that seems decent. It has 14 compartments so I can put specific amounts of food for each day. I was wondering if anyone has had experience with it or other feeders. It's only $23 at petco online, which is not bad, cheaper than paying a kid lol.

EDIT: here's a link: http://www.petco.com/Shop/Product.aspx?sku=131180

--Adeeb

 

[JohnPaul]

How long will you be gone? Most fish can easily go a full week without any feedings and be fine. Some common fish can go longer--livebearers will munch on algae growing in the tank and can easily go 10 days if not longer without anyone feeding them. Over the course of my years in the hobby I have regularly gone on 7-10 day vacations without setting up a feeder or asking someone else to do it, and never had any losses.

Now, if you have tanks of babies/fry or something like that, that's a different story. Or if you are talking a two week or longer vacation, same thing, that's a different story.

 

[Smitty]

Well, I was gone for 2 weeks and used that exact feeder when I was gone and it worked absolutely wonderfull. I set it up to feed once a day and I didn't have any problems. I did use a pellet food when I did it but don't think flakes would be a problem.

The only problem I had is that the ring with the 14 holes doesn't have a top or bottom (obviously, so the food can come out) and while filling up them up I bumped it and had a big mess of food on the counter and had to start over because I couldn't seat the ring back down... very liveable problem though

I also used it as a test for my daughter's turtles and again it worked fine.

If you feed every other day then it would only be good for 14 days because you would leave every other container open.

That being said, as JohnPaul mentioned, your fish can handle not being fed for several days at least. I have done up to 5 day blackouts without feeding and never had a problem.

Edit: Man, how many times can one person use the word problem in a post? hehehe

 

[adeebm]

Edit: Man, how many times can one person use the word problem in a post? hehehe

That could be a problem

Ny family usually goes for no longer than a week or two. I guess they would be fine, but I'd be less worried about them if I knew they were being fed lol. I'll get one of the feeders and try them out thanks for the replies.

--Adeeb