Holiday Feeding - Auto Feeding Advice Sought

I noticed a post from fcmf talking about Fishmate auto-feeder which looks to have little compartments which different food can go into, but does this just do one feed a day if it can take 14 separate meals, as thinking this might be a better options.

Before I spend more money any other suggestions or views on whether there are other choices? I might be able to get someone to come round once a week when we're away, but don't really want them to have to do anything, just check that they are OK. Althought not really sure what I'd do if the weren't

That's correct - the Fishmate auto-feeder has 14 compartments, so can be set to provide 1 meal per day for 14 days. [For general info for anyone else reading this, it can supply up to 4 meals per day but then would consequently run out after a few days. Theoretically, it could provide food less frequently than once per day if every second compartment were left empty, but would then 'expire' after 7 alternate-day feeds.]

The disadvantage, in my own experience, of having someone come round is that this can cause undue worry (unless they're experienced fishkeepers). As well as being let down by someone who had promised to come round and do the feeding, I had someone overly concerned about several things such as why all the plants had been uprooted / knocked over, whether the fish might be ill, etc, which in turn had me unnecessarily worried. If you were tasking someone to do any more than this, then another few points to bear in mind include: in much the same way as there can be a certain technique to opening/locking a door, there can be a certain technique to opening a tank lid without disturbing the filter such as causing it to dislodge in such a way that it vibrates against the glass or inadvertently catching a floating plant which in turn uproots a piece of wood underneath, which can set in motion a chain of potentially awkward events; I read recently of someone who advised the visitor to switch off the tank lights but the visitor switched off the filter too/instead, resulting in a tank of dead fish; when feeding, I'd recommend the auto-feeder over humans, but, if you prefer humans to do this, then putting the food into an egg-cup covered in clingfilm in advance to be simply emptied into the tank, with the food tubs hidden out of the way to avoid temptation to overfeed, is the best way to go about this.

Hope that's helpful.

Cool thanks Matt, I've just ordered another feeder which I'll try out, still have a number of weeks before holiday. And thanks for your other comments,  thinking about having someone come in and then maybe getting in touch saying is this or that OK will probably just stress me out more while I'm away. I'll leave off the human intervention. 

Hopefully new feeder will work a bit better and I'll be able to leave them without too much fear!!

Thanks

If there is someone you can trust - in my case my son - those pill dispensers with compartments for each day are useful. Just put the food in the compartments so they just have to empty the compartment into the tank. Though Littlefish would probably have to buy the entire shop's supply to get enough pill dispensers 

The other tip when getting someone else to feed the fish is - measure out the food then hide the food tub. A lot of non-fishkeepers think we are too mean with the amount of food, so give them extra. If they can't find the food, the fish won't be overfed.

Fish do not need to be fed every day, going away for a week is not a problem. Fish don't need as much food as would be expected because they don't burn up food to keep warm like mammals and birds do.
And those blocks can make a real mess of the tank and water conditions - they dump a lot of food in at one go, and the filler is often chalk so you come home to find a white layer over everything, and water quality problems.

If there is someone you can trust - in my case my son - those pill dispensers with compartments for each day are useful. Just put the food in the compartments so they just have to empty the compartment into the tank. Though Littlefish would probably have to buy the entire shop's supply to get enough pill dispensers 

  So true