Holiday Feeding

[ChrisH]

Hi!

I am after peoples experiences of the automatic fish tank feeders out there.. I will have to go away for a week with work in August and unfortunately there arn;t going to be very many people around who I trust to feed them!

What are the best options?

Thanks!

 

[daisycat]

We got the only available one from our LFS. We previously used those blocks of food that dissolve over the course of a week but since we got the turtle a year or so ago we need to drop food in regularly for him/her.

The feeder was one that sat on top of the tank and rotated slowly and dropped food through a hole. There was nowhere to put it on the tank so we had to put it in the back flap and cut a hole through into the tank! We then practiced with it for about 3 weeks before going as it kept jamming etc. Discovered you have to make sure there is absolutely no bits of food in there that aren't in the compartments (so very fiddly to fill) or they eventually block the thing up.

Have to say, I don't know if there is a better version, but I wouldn't like to use that one again. Hopefully someone on here can actually recommend you a good brand or something. But definitely practice with it first, don't just assume you can set it up and it will work fine for a week!

Good luck

 

[Yenko]

If it's just for a week try and get a friend in to feed them 3 or 4 times over the course of the week. They can't do much damage then. Make sure they feed the fish nothing with more protien than flake food; the fish will be hungry and will gorge themselves; which could cause intestinal blockage if they're fed brine shrimp or something.

 

[tstenback]

if you have friends come over to feed i wold put the food in separate containers for each feeding and tell them that only one container per feeding. This has worked quite well for me in the past. HTH

 

[JamesTasker]

If the fish have been well fed previously then leaving them without food for a week should be OK I think.