7-night cruise, feeding fish..

[ivy2dw7]

I'm going on a 7-night cruise in June and I just thought of this: How am I going to feed my fish while I'm gone? There most likely won't be anyone around that will be able to take care of the tanks. I'm in the process of finding timers for my lights (mainly finding room for timers) but how am I supposed to feed everything? I feed my reef tank a mixture of frozen mysis, marine cuisine and minced garlic. This isn't something I can just put into an automatic feeder. What do you do when you go on vacation? :notsure:

 

[arrissa]

You should train someone to test the water and feed the fish, however, if this is not an option, the fish can go without food for 7 days easily. However, I would be conserned about having someone check on the tank for temperature reasons and so forth. A timer on the lights is a good idea, but not completely neccesary unless you have corals, normal daylight inwith the house will be sufficient for that short amount of time, for fish.

 

[snipe]

You can buy a feed timer. It is just like a light timer but at every so often "that you set it to" will dispence the amount of food you want it to. They are around $40 though but worth it.

 

[ophiura]

How much LR do you have and what kind of fish?
I would STRONGLY encourage you to find someone to come in at least once for things like top offs. That could be a problem. Then you can get a premeasured amount of food and label which day it is and they can just put it in the tank. But yes there are cheap auto feeders for flake/pellet food.

 

[ivy2dw7]

It's a 37g, about 40 pounds LR. Right now I have a toadstool, bubble coral, green tree coral, pulsing xenias and some assorted mushrooms along with 2 cleaner shrimp, 1 peppermint, 1 serpent star, 10ish hermits, 10-15 snails, 2 orange skunk clowns and a royal gramma. By the time I go on the cruise I will also have an eibli angel in there (she is in quarantine right now). I can't do the automatic feeder because I don't feed them flake or pellet food. My boyfriend MIGHT be in town that week if I can convince him to stick around to take care of all my animals (3 dogs, 2 cats, 5 aquariums and a pond). If he stays, then I've got it covered, but he might be going somewhere that week also, so that leaves no one. I don't think losing water will be a problem as long as I make sure it's topped off right before I leave. I just need to make sure everything will be fed.

 

[monalisa]

Hmmmmm...sounds to me like you may just need to toss those cruise tickets my way... :thinking:

 

[wax32]

The tank can go without feeding... I did a 7 day cruise in February. No food. I did have my mother-in-law top off the tank everyday tho.

 

[debbie g]

I also have the problem of not having anyone to take care of pets if I go away. (Four dogs, a 175 gallon, a 55 gallon, and a bird). I'm just curious as to why you are not worried about topping off...does your tank not evaporate that much water? I have to put about 2 or 3 gallons of top off a day in the 175. I am not going to worry about the feeding as much as the topping off. I do have a little plan I'm considering. I was thinking that maybe I can calculate how much water will come out of the r/o unit and get it timed so that its just enough to make up for the evaporated water and have it feed directly into my tank or the sump. I'll have to have practice runs while I'm here in the house and can watch it. Now, that just leaves the dogs....anybody?
Anyway, I wouldn't worry about the feedings. You have to figure that if these fish were still in the ocean, do you think they'd be getting so lucky as to be well-fed every day? Good Luck!

 

[ophiura]

They do feed every day in the ocean, so the amount of LR is actually quite important. And it needs to be mature enough that it is growing the sort of stuff that they feed on. Sure, several days is fine, but having a new fish in there too, and a relatively small tank...they will probably be alright. It is just about as far as I would push it though.
I am pretty sure the clowns and the gramma would take pretty readily to pellets or flake. Not so sure on the angel.
But I am pretty concerned about the top off. A lot of people do make an auto top off kinda of along where you are thinking...but use a float switch or something. That might be something to look into making considering the size of your tank.

 

[ivy2dw7]

Just so you know I'm not worried about top off because I don't lose a ton of water from evaporation. I'd just top it off the night before I leave and top it off when I get home. The most I would lose would probably be 2ish gallons and before I got the RO unit I had it go down further than that before having the chance to fill it back up.

 

[snipe]

Fish can go along time without food it can take fish up to a month or more to starve to death. Fish always act like there hungry but there really not. I also let my tank get alittle low around 2 gallons or so before topping off. Though since my tank is open top now it gets there alot faster about a gallon a day is what im loosing. I am going to put some type of top on it when I get a chance to. Probly gonna be acrylic or glass cover and see how that works if the heat goes up I will put holes in it.