Auto Feeder Question

[Onebb]

I have a couple clowns that I typically feed every other day. I have a lot of pods in the tank as well. Do you think the fish can go without me feeding them for a week? I will have business travel soon for about a week and just was wondering everyone's opinion on the matter.

Also, does anyone have experience with auto-feeders? Pros/cons?

Thanks!

Onebb

[Derek]

I wouldn't be comfortable leaving my babies alone for that long without me. I would have someone swing by your place a few times while you are out of town just to make sure that everything is alright.

[Zarathustra2]

I've left mine without fooding them for a week before with no problem. I really do recommend having someone go by twice a week or so and add some extra top off water/make sure all the pumps are fine.

I've done this several times for friends and 95% of the time it wouldn't have mattered. The one time it did a pump failed on an autotop off and without me checking it would have been a bad week for those fish.

[Onebb]

Thanks for the comments. I will prob get a guy I work with to stop by mid week.

[theresa]

Yes, please have someone check on them. My friend went off for three days, 200 plus gallon tank and one of the animales got caught in the pump. The pump went out causing a hardship on the other one and lost the whole tank of beautiful babies, not to mention the money invovled and it was horrible cleaning out the tank.

[Crab Rangoon]

You should also adjust your lighting to be, perhaps, about half of what it currently is. This will help avoid (or minimize) any possible algae outbreak, or temperature swing while you're gone. You might also adjust your skimmer (if you have one) to a lower level inside the neck, this way you don't wind up overfilling the skimmate cup and having it spill into your tank if you don't have an overflow reservoir rigged up.

Changing your home's thermostat to be a lot less "comfortable" while you're gone is OK, as long as you keep it within reasonable parameters for the aquarium. This is another reason why adjusting lights to be on for a minimum number of hours may aid the tank's stability while you're out of town.