Vacation Feeders

[Guppygal]

I recently inherited about 30 adult guppies and put them into my 20gal tank. They are all a little stressed and I realize very overcrowded, but are generally doing good.

My problem is I am going away for about a week and I am trying to decide whether to use an automatic fish food dispensor or one of those vacation pyramid feeders. I have used those feeders in my other tank with no problems, but they have been known to change to PH which is what my new fish don't need right now.

Have any of you had problems with the vacation feeders? Lost any fish after using them?

Also some books say gups and even the fry can go two weeks without being fed--- I don't know about that.., though I guess it's better than being overfed by a neighbor...

any help would be much appreciated as I am leaving very soon...

 

[MartinB]

I put 2 vacation pyramid feeders in my tank and went away for about a week.
Thay were all ok when I got back.

 

[guppymonkey]

If the fish haven't been starved recently they should have no problem going a week without food. These are cold blooded animals and their basic needs are obviously not the same as they would be for a warm blooded animal. Going without food for awhile is no big problem. Sometimes those vacation feeders can be a problem. They can change the water parameters including pH (as you mentioned)and add ammonia when they start to decompose. They can also cloud the water. Its better to just go without feeding them than to mess up the water conditions (especially with the fish stressed to begin with).

 

[EddieW]

I use the Fish Mate F14 feeders on my tanks when I go away and they have always worked well. You can often find them on e-bay for reasonable prices.

The main thing to remember is to set them up a day or two in advance to make sure that they are working properly.

I was away for a couple of days this week so I set up the feeders to give each tank two feeds per day, which are dispensed over an hour or so. I got back last night and all of the feeders had worked properly and all of the fish (including the marines) were fine.

HTH, Eddie