Holiday Blocks

[vio88]

Last summer I was away for a week and used a tetra vacation gel holiday block. This summer I will be gone for two weeks and am a little nervous about my fish. I have those same blocks again but am wondering if the little chart on the back can be trusted to feed my fish enough. I have two tanks, a 20 gallon and a 10 gallon. In my 20 gallon is 7 guppies, 3 cories, 2 java fern, soon to be some floating plants and snails. In my 10 gallon tank I don't have any live plants and the only fish are some guppy fry probably about 30 (or maybe closer to 50 never know how many will be born). The chart on the package says 2 blocks in 20 gallon tank and 1 block in the 10 gallon for up to 14 days. I have an extra block in case but what do you guys think is what the chart says enough?

 

[seangee]

Personally I would not feed the holiday blocks. They pollute the water (at a time when you aren't doing water changes).

Just do a water change before you leave and another when you get back. DOn't worry about feeding - the fish will be just fine.

 

[vio88]

So you're saying that fish can go an entire 2 weeks without food?

 

[seangee]

So you're saying that fish can go an entire 2 weeks without food?

Yup. I have just been away for 3 weeks and never lost a single fish (or shrimp). Fish don't require energy to keep warm like mammals.

 

[Colin_T]

In addition to what Seangee has written, you can feed the fish more often (3-5 times per day) for a couple of weeks before you go away, so they can build up some fat reserves. And do big (75%) water changes and gravel clean the substrate each day before you go. This will clean the tank up and make it nice for when you are away.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

You can add some live plants and they can give the fish something to chew on while you're away.

You can increase the lighting times a bit to encourage algae to grow on the glass. The fish will graze on this too.

But holiday feeding blocks are not worth using. They cause more problems than they should.

Don't add any new fish before you go.