How do I prepare my fish for a week without food?

[Tanked]

I'm being called a way for  7-9 days,  The fish will need to fend for themselves.   The unplanned trip is already proving to be expensive so, even if I can find 4 auto feeders in 3 days I'd rather not spend >$130. for a 1 time use.

The SAEs can take care of themselves, The TFBs and SDs might be okay  They graze on algae now. The plan for the moment is to add broccoli to their tanks.  I'm not sure what the various tetras or angels will do. 

While I think of it, do the auto feeders work well with flake food, or do I need to buy something else?

[Guppysnail]

 

[Tanked]

On 8/2/2024 at 1:27 PM, Guppysnail said:

 

That is pretty much what I thought.  Trip details are still indeterminate😬, so I thought I'd ask anyway.  They have always done well with long weekends.

 

[AllFishNoBrakes]

When I go away for a week I do nothing. I feed them like normal and do normal maintenance up until I’m gone, and then I resume when I get back. Never had an issue. 
 

If someone is at the house watching it while we’re away I might have them severely underfeed a couple of times. I’m talking like 20% of what I would normally feed. Just a couple snacks while I’m gone, but it’s not necessary at all. Also have to really trust that person to follow whatever instructions you might leave them. 
 

I keep it simple and took the tiny scoop from the Xtreme Betta food and put it in a small jar of Xtreme Nano. Then I just label each tank with number of scoops. Typically I’ll text them and just say hey bro, can you feed my fish today? To avoid any additional confusion. 
 

If nobody is watching the house, though, the fish are fine for 7 days. 

[Tlindsey]

I have personally gone on vacation for 1week had 3 aquariums running at that time. I was worried more about evaporation of my sump filter. Got back no fish deaths and sump water was low but fine. 

[Airborne 82nd]

I would worry more about power failures. Does all you stuff start back up on its own? Do you have battery backup on anything?

[Tanked]

On 8/2/2024 at 8:46 PM, Airborne 82nd said:

I would worry more about power failures. Does all you stuff start back up on its own? Do you have battery backup on anything?

Power outages here are rare, and short lived.  The 29 has a battery backup on the ACO air pump, but that is the extent of it.  The other tanks (65-75) are under populated, over filtered, and self priming so I'm not overly concerned.

[mynameisnobody]

At most, I would do a water change before you leave. Other than that, you’re good. 

[Torrey]

@Tanked I was gone from mid March until the beginning of May.

I only use air pumps and UGF/sponge filters, I have weaned all my tanks off heaters and other filtration.

 

I had a neighbor who topped off the tanks, and fed the fish a dusting of the Easy Fry Food every 2 weeks. Nobody died, none of the fish were malnourished when I got home. I do have heavily planted tanks that are essentially closed eco-systems minus minimal maintenance from me.

 

They are normally fed every other day, unless I'm breeding, and then they are fed multiple times a day and get water changes.

 

This is one of the 15 tanks plus the pond that were up and running while I was gone.

 

I did come home to a fair amount of hair algae in one tank, and the white cloud mountain minnows spawned despite not being fed by humans (the shrimp in their tank didn't have any new shrimplettes or zooeys floating, so I suspect the minnows just took advantage of a live food source)

[Tanked]

On 8/3/2024 at 2:46 PM, mynameisnobody said:

At most, I would do a water change before you leave. Other than that, you’re good. 

That is the plan for the moment.

[Silverback]

I would just feed your fish a couple extra small feedings the days leading to you leaving.  I've been gone seven to eight days on a regular basis without feeding my fish with no issues.  Just make sure your tank is topped of incase evaporation would expose a heater or cause a filter return to splash.

ZooMed and other companies make banquet food blocks that release food slowly.  Usually they have guides as to how many to use.  Also some make their own fish food or use Repashy and dip rocks into it for the food to attach to it.  Depending on your fish load the gelatin food should last a couple days decreasing the amount of days without food.  

Good luck and have a safe trip!

[govsfabshop]

Just went down this road and everything turned out just fine after a week! I fed the smaller tanks blood worms and baby brine the week before leaving and loaded the puffer up pretty good the night before and morning we left. My only worry was aggression in my big tank as one of my redhead tapajos pairs laid a massive amount of eggs the night before we left, got home to no eggs but everyone was still fine! Come to think of it i dont think i even worried until the night we got home as one tanks still at my old house and i wasnt going to be able to go check until the next day! Dont sweat it and have a safe trip

[Tanked]

Y'all were correct; the fish were fine. (I think)  It is hard to keep track of all the nano fish. 

Surprisingly, the only issue was the project tank.  After 10 days with no light, The Amazon Sword and Anubia are looking good, but the Wisteria and PSO took a major hit.