Working Away From Home & Feeding Fish

In the not-too-distant future I will be finding myself in a situation where I will not be able to feed my fish on a daily basis. I wasn't sure about starting a separate post from this one https://forums.thinkfish.co.uk/fish-food-and-feeding/holiday-feeding-3387/ but my situation is quite different, so I thought I'd go ahead.

Towards the end of next month I will be starting a new job, which will involve me being away from home 3 days, possibly 5 days, every week. I'm aware that with the current job market this sort of situation is becoming more common for people, so I'm hoping that someone here has some experience with this.

I know that my gang are fine for a few days, as I have left them for long weekends previously, but I can't imagine that this would be good for them on such a regular basis. It also probably doesn't help that I have so many tanks, with a variety of fish/amphibians, and different dietary requirements.

Lighting is not so much of an issue, as I'm in the process of changing lights and fitting timers.
When considering feeding I've looked at automatic feeders, and found this
https://forums.thinkfish.co.uk/tank-equipment-reviews/automatic-feeders/

My current thoughts are as follows:-

I'm not too worried about the axolotls, they mainly eat earthworms & axolotl pellets, and don't get fed every day anyway.

I'm guessing that most of my community tanks could have an automatic feeder. Due to the mix of fish in these tanks I would need to feed a variety of food, flake/pellets/wafers.

The mudskippers and dwarf puffers mainly have bloodworms. I don't know what to do about this, and I'm particularly concerned about the dwarf puffers.

The dwarf puffers normally get fed bloodworms in small amounts 2-3 times a day. They will eat snails, and I have a tank in another room used for breeding pest snails for them. The smaller fish can only manage very small snails, and the larger one is likely to stuff herself silly. Perhaps more plants for the snails to hide in?

I can't use an automatic feeder with the mudskippers due to their set up. Although they will eat fish food (they are fine with things like betta pellets & Bug Bites) the tanks are mostly land rather than water. They eat from bowls on the land areas, and there isn't really anywhere suitable for an automatic feeder to dispense food. Humidity also has to be kept high in their tanks, so that is a problem too.

Apologies for such a long message, but I thought I'd try to give as much information as possible. I appreciate anyone giving advice on any aspect of any part of the situation I'm about to find myself in. Eventually the issues may be resolved by relocation, but that won't be any time soon (although I've already checked tap water parameters in the area, and they are similar to what I have here  ).

Thanks in advance.

Congrats on the new job! 


Long shot but on the line's of fcmf suggestion maybe these will help?


https://www.care.com/en-gb/enrollment/memberInformation?geoRegionId=POSTCODE-UK-CB22_7NU&registrationType=Seeker&verticalId=petCare&subVerticals=fish&clientType=Customer&services=dailyFeeding


Ps I put in a random Cambridgeshire postcode!

I have the Fishmate one, so feel free to ask any questions if you have any.  If you have any lids with flat tops and/or where there is a feeding hole, it would be ideal.

The difficulty with any auto-feeder is if you have fish or snails/shrimp liable to jump or creep out respectively, as many auto-feeders clip onto the side of the tank and create a gap or require no lid in the way (and a condensation tray in situ in its place doesn't always suffice).

All new feeders have arrived. Further updates when they have been fitted. 

I have a Fishmate F14 for the river tank, as it looked like it could handle the algae wafers.

Having one myself, yes, I would imagine it would handle algae wafers. At this time of year, with such high humidity, you might find the feeder clogs a little - if so, leave the top, clear part open which seems to help, and there is an option for airline tubing to help (although I've never tried this).

So far so good.
Monday I was feeding the gang & checking tanks at around 5am, before heading off to my first week at the new job.
I got home yesterday, and it looks as if everyone has survived. I was so relieved.
The room was quite warm, but all the feeders have done their jobs. It was just the dwarf puffers who immediately darted to the feeding end of the tank looking s if they were thinking "what time do you call this! Come on, hurry up with those bloodworms". I'm sure they were hungry, but they always look like that whenever I go near the tank, so I don;t think they've suffered too much.
I need to made some adjustments to the automatic feeders, and today will be a whole day of tank maintenance, so I'll be able to have a much closer look at how everyone is getting on, but apart from actually missing the fish & axolotls, the week has gone quite well. 

Yes, it's a massive relief to know that the gang will be ok in my absence.
I wanted to get as many of the feeds automated so that the person popping in wouldn't have to do too much, just the frozen food.
It's kind of cheating a bit, but it's also very comforting to know that the person looking after the fish in my absence is a very experienced fish keeper, and works at MA, so could deal with an emergency if anything happened. 

I will also admit that, with the work situation, I now have a renewed joy for tank cleaning. 

With the number of tanks I have/had previously, I was cleaning every day. There were times where it had become a bit of a chore.

Now, not only am I glad to be home, but tank maintenance gives me time to reconnect with the fish (I'm sure they don't feel the same way about it). I still need to get a bit more organised with both being away and what I do when I get home, though this is only the end of the second week of the new job, so I'm not beating myself up too much about it.

Over the next week or so I hope to be able to agree at least one day a week to always work from home, get a bit more organised with work, and get to a point where I know what I'm doing (or at least have a vague idea) each week. In general it's going well though. 

 

Eventually I hope to find enough time to squeeze a life into the mix as well.