Auto Feeders For Fluval Edge Tank?

[Chris Wright]

I need to leave my Edge Tank for a week soon and want to get an autofeeder as the 6 Galaxies are not yet eating very well. I don't want to leave them without food for a whole week if their reserves are not yet good.
So has anyone used a battery feeder over the top of an Edge Tank and if so what kind? I imagined I could leave the top box cover off and arrange some kind of alternative that the feeder could sit on, so the food would drop past the light mounting and into the water. Perhaps 2 small feeds during the week would be OK? Anyone got any thoughts?

 

[Truck]

I wouldn't trust an auto feeder in such a small body of water, I would leave them, a week is fine, in the wild fish can go without food for weeks on end, a week is nothing.

Just feed them a bit more than usual the week leading up to the break, what are you feeding them? just flake? try some daphnia.

 

[Chris Wright]

I wouldn't trust an auto feeder in such a small body of water, I would leave them, a week is fine, in the wild fish can go without food for weeks on end, a week is nothing.

Just feed them a bit more than usual the week leading up to the break, what are you feeding them? just flake? try some daphnia.


What about a small feeding block? Are they any good?

 

[Truck]

no, they will pollute the water, which is even worse.

 

[kelly528]

Yeah a feeding block will definitely crash the tank.

If your tank is fairly mature and has plants in it, I would imagine that (being so small) the Galaxies would graze off bits of algae and any copepods, planaria, rotifers or other bugs that are hiding in the tank. It isn't exactly meat and potatoes but they should be okay for a week.

Another thing you could do if you have any kids in the neighborhood / trusted neighbors is have someone feed you fish. A kid probably wouldn't mind coming every day or every other day but for a neighbor if they could just feed them once that would probably be good to. Just use a weekly pill case to portion out the food. I do that all the time cause I don't trust my parents not to overfeed my fish lol.

 

[drobbyb]

I wouldn't trust an auto feeder in such a small body of water, I would leave them, a week is fine, in the wild fish can go without food for weeks on end, a week is nothing.

Just feed them a bit more than usual the week leading up to the break, what are you feeding them? just flake? try some daphnia.

/agreed

 

[Chris Wright]

Thanks for the advice folks, I left my Galaxies for 10 days without a feeder and they were all fine. They were certainly hungry when I got back though, frozen Cyclops was very soon chomped!

 

[waterdrop]

Congrats Chris! Definately makes you nervous the first time but I've done it too and once you've done it once or twice you realize they'll be ok. The comments I've read most often from the experienced folks are to taper their feeding downward before leaving and the start very light when you get back and taper the amount of their food back up to normal (which should be pretty light anyway -- what can be consumed in two to three minutes, once a day, which to me always feels quite light, but keeps them energetic!)

~~waterdrop~~