Advice please

[ReeferDale]

Hi Guys,

I'm going away for 6 days in December and would like your advice on if i need to feed my fish with an auto feeder or not while I'm gone? I will do a water change before I go and the lights are on a timer.

I have a bioCube 29 with: 2 Ocellaris clowns, a royal grammar, mandarin fish and fire goby. Also a cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimp and some small sps and lps corals too.

 

[Kensington Reefer]

Invest in an auto-feeder.
Get it and use it long before you go away so that you can get used to the way that it works
I prefer the eheim model but there are others that work too.
I like to eat every day...so do your fish.
They should be offered several small feedings throughout the day.
Fish spend lots of energy swimming around in our tanks

 

[aqua-nut]

Invest in an auto-feeder.
Get it and use it long before you go away so that you can get used to the way that it works
I prefer the eheim model but there are others that work too.
I like to eat every day...so do your fish.
They should be offered several small feedings throughout the day.
Fish spend lots of energy swimming around in our tanks

+1
Especially the mandy.

Do your fish usually eat pellets? If they don't, best to start teaching them NOW!

 

[iCon]

Yes to the water change and yes to feeding. Make sure you test your auto feeder for a couple weeks prior to leaving. When feeding while out of town, I prefer to feed much less than normal as this minimizes your risk of having too much food dumped in while you're gone. Also, only fill up the auto feeder with just enough to last while you're gone just in case the whole chamber finds its way into your tank...

 

[Enderturtle]

Make the fish fat and then do a 50% water change before you go.

 

[ReeferDale]

Ok so I'm going down the auto feeder route, any suggestions on what model fits a BioCube 29 without leaving the hood open?

 

[aqua-nut]

Ok so I'm going down the auto feeder route, any suggestions on what model fits a BioCube 29 without leaving the hood open?

That complicates matters. The Eheim 'Everyday Fish Feeder' is 2.75" tall by 5.5" long.

Will there be anyone checking in on the tank? If so, you could package food in daily amounts for them to feed. Don't leave full containers of food out unless your fish sitter is experienced.

 

[dswong01]

I used the eheim feeder for my last one week vacation. Worked very well and easy to program for mulitples feeding.

 

[iCon]

Ok so I'm going down the auto feeder route, any suggestions on what model fits a BioCube 29 without leaving the hood open?

Nope - Pretty sure you'll have to come up with a workaround. I had an Eheim dump food into a funnel for a covered tank and it worked just fine. Good luck

 

[Coral reefer]

Something like a funnel is important to keep the food from floating right into the overflow anyways.

 

[650-IS350]

I've left my fish for a week every year when I go to hawaii.

Just do water changes before you go, feed them like crazy

before you leave make sure you top off water, feeder is full enough to last the days your away.

Then when you get back if you have salt water prepared do 25% changes. Run carbon.

 

[rygh]

If it is just a week, they should be fine with nothing. But my recommendation would be
to auto-feed, and start it right now, to get them used to it, and to make sure it works well.

My preference is to always feed 3 times a day from an auto-feeder, then once by hand at night with frozen.
The smaller fish really seem to like several feedings per day.
Roughly half of their nutrition is from the auto-feeder.

Then when I go on vacation, they simply do not get frozen, but still get the normal dry food.
A bit of a diet, but they will be fine, and less water quality issues.

They really become trained. To the point where they go up an wait under the feeder each time,
usually within 15 minutes of when it drops. I was a bit surprised by that.

 

[ReeferDale]

Thanks for all the advice, its proving to be a challenge to find a feeder that will work for a bioCube. Leaving the lid open is not an option

 

[Kensington Reefer]

Another good reason to stay away from the AIO's