Holiday Feeding

Welcome to the forum.

An alternative option would be to buy an auto-feeder that drops in the food when away - I can't speak for other brands but the Fishmate auto-feeder which I have certainly would allow algae wafers in them which would drop in as well as other food. For example, it could drop in food for the other fish during the daytime and could drop in an algae wafer late at night for the sucker fish. It has the advantage in that, unlike a feeding block which can "pollute" the tank with too much waste or could be devoured immediately, it drops in food at pre-set times, in whatever way you set it before you leave on holiday.

The following threads in this forum might be helpful:
http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forums/new-fishkeepers/going-on-holiday/msg15181/#msg15181
http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forums/fish-food-product-reviews/fish-tank-auto-feeder/msg17921/#msg17921
http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forums/fish-food-and-feeding/views-on-automatic-feeders-whilst-on-holiday/msg24137/#msg24137
http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forums/tank-equipment-reviews/automatic-feeders/msg24188/#msg24188

If you have any questions at all specifically about the Fishmate auto-feeder, please do ask, as I'd be happy to answer them given that I have 11 years of experience of using it if ever I've been away.

A lot of those feeding blocks have chalk as a filler and it is not unheard of for the fishkeeper to return to find the bottom of his tank covered with a layer of white powder, and dead fish. Since you can't tell from looking at them which brands do this, avoid them all.

In the wild fish don't eat every day. Tropical fish have no problems going a week without food. If you have plants, live or fake, they will have a biofilm growing on every surface which fish will eat. And on any rocks, pieces of wood etc (even plastic ones)

Yes, it does.

A lot of those feeding blocks have chalk as a filler and it is not unheard of for the fishkeeper to return to find the bottom of his tank covered with a layer of white powder, and dead fish. Since you can't tell from looking at them which brands do this, avoid them all.

 @Sue
We've got a long weekend coming up soon.  I'm OK with feeding on the Friday morning and then on the afternoon of the following Tuesday.
But, for our Summer holiday  we're going for two weeks. Is it viable to not feed for 2 weeks?
Our tank lid isn't suitable to take an external feeder. It's suspended on four clips with a gap of about 3mm all around.
Our normal holiday cover will be away at the same time.
That then, I think,  only leaves the options of starving the fish, all 21 of them, or risking a 2-week block.
I have a plan to try some out well before we go and carefully monitor what goes on. Do you know of any brands that definitely are chalk based?

Has anyone out there used them, with what results and which brand(s)?

Hi Adenann,

A couple of additional possibilities for you:
* buy a shorter-length block (eg a weekend block or a week block) which will feed them for some of the time, even if not for the full fortnight; this has the advantage that, if the fish do attack and demolish it early on (as my goldfish did), they'll be so full it won't matter if they end up with no food for the remainder of the time and it also means that there's less likelihood of waste.
* remove the tank lid (if that's possible) and buy a heavy duty condensation tray to put in its place, cut a hole out of that and set an auto-feeder on top of that with the feeding hole just above the cut-out hole; Fishmate's auto-feeder works that way but you'd need to check with @Matt to see whether his brand of auto-feeder would work that way too.

Can I just point out @Matt the link you posted links to the mounting bracket for the feeder and not the feeder itself. Bracket plus feeder cost is £39.99 from Amazon.

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