Going on holiday

I have a tank with 10 pristella tetras in it (approx 1" long small
tetras). Water quality etc is ok. There are no plants. A backup
airpump-driven filter complements the main filter which needs manual
restarting after a blackout.

What I'm more concerned about is feeding. If I give them a good feed
before I go, how long before they start starving to death?

Travis

On 5 Jan 2006 21:49:39 -0800, "Travis" wrote:

I have a tank with 10 pristella tetras in it (approx 1" long small
tetras). Water quality etc is ok. There are no plants. A backup
airpump-driven filter complements the main filter which needs manual
restarting after a blackout.

What I'm more concerned about is feeding. If I give them a good feed
before I go, how long before they start starving to death?

Travis


Two months is the longest I have gone for fish in an indoor aquarium.

Charles wrote:
On 5 Jan 2006 21:49:39 -0800, "Travis" wrote:


I have a tank with 10 pristella tetras in it (approx 1" long small
tetras). Water quality etc is ok. There are no plants. A backup
airpump-driven filter complements the main filter which needs manual
restarting after a blackout.

What I'm more concerned about is feeding. If I give them a good feed
before I go, how long before they start starving to death?

Travis



Two months is the longest I have gone for fish in an indoor aquarium.

Two months? How large were the fish? Were the tanks planted? I'd love
to not have to worry about having a friend come over and feed the fish
but my cardinals, guppies, and Espei rasboras seem awfully small to go
more than a few days without food. I'd also be afraid of losing the
cardinals to the angel or M. altispinosa in the community. The guppies
would probably be fine in their little tank eating tiny ramshorn snails,
plants, and algae.

--
Elaine T __
http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__
rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com

Travis wrote:
[vacation story]
What I'm more concerned about is feeding. If I give them a good feed
before I go, how long before they start starving to death?

Actually that well-meant "good feed" is likely to do more harm than good.
The uneaten, rotting food will drive amonia and nitrite levels up and nobody
will be home to do an emergency water change.

If you can't get someone to feed the fish (premeasured amounts, otherwise
people will always overfeed because the fish look so hungry) then why not
getting an automated feeder?

Otherwise a few days shouldn't be any problem.

jue

"Jürgen Exner" wrote in message
news:B_nvf.2429$q26.1363@trnddc03...
Travis wrote:
[vacation story]
What I'm more concerned about is feeding. If I give them a good feed
before I go, how long before they start starving to death?

Actually that well-meant "good feed" is likely to do more harm than
good.
The uneaten, rotting food will drive amonia and nitrite levels up and
nobody will be home to do an emergency water change.

If you can't get someone to feed the fish (premeasured amounts,
otherwise people will always overfeed because the fish look so hungry)
then why not getting an automated feeder?

Otherwise a few days shouldn't be any problem.

jue


Exactly ). I can leave my fish for a couple of weeks (auto-feeder on
each tank). Longer than that and I might want to move some fish
together, double the auto-feeders per tank, and instead of the current 2
feedings per day on each feeder, change it to a single daily serving each
(for redundancy, longer battery life and longer interval before needing
to be refilled). This arrangement might go months, but I need to keep a
low fishload as there's no one to do water changes.

The only drawback is that small tetras get fed flake food, and
auto-feeders do pellets great, or pellet/flake mixtures. Straight flake
food clogs more easily, from humidity or oversize flakes (break them up
so you have a uniform size before filling the feeder). hth
--
www.NetMax.tk

Jürgen Exner wrote:
Travis wrote:
[vacation story]
What I'm more concerned about is feeding. If I give them a good feed
before I go, how long before they start starving to death?

Actually that well-meant "good feed" is likely to do more harm than good.
The uneaten, rotting food will drive amonia and nitrite levels up and nobody
will be home to do an emergency water change.

I know that overfeeding isn't going to help, by that I meant only that
I should ensure that they are well fed (as much as they will eat
without leaving food to rot in the tank) for the week prior to me
going.

If you can't get someone to feed the fish (premeasured amounts, otherwise
people will always overfeed because the fish look so hungry) then why not
getting an automated feeder?

Frankly I'd rather buy some new tetras than spend that kind of money.
As callous as this sounds, when I was considering getting an autofeeder
I took into account the replacement costs of the fish. If these were
discus or cichlids or something then it would be another matter, but
these are just little tetras...

Otherwise a few days shouldn't be any problem.

How about two weeks?

Travis

"Travis" wrote in message
oups.com...
How about two weeks?
===========================
For the sake of kindness - please have someone come in and feed them at
least every few days while you're gone. As someone else suggested, have
pre-packaged amounts for them to add to the tank. Also a jug of water in
case there's a lot of evaporation while you're gone.
--

Koi-Lo.... frugal ponding since 1995...
Aquariums since 1952
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
NEW PAGE: Aquariums:
http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/h/shastada...ium-Page4.html
http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/h/shastadaisy
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

Hi..

but these are just little tetras...

Really? What makes them different to discus or cichlids?

Otherwise a few days shouldn't be any problem.
How about two weeks?

Two weeks without food are no prob to the most heathy and
well kept fish!

Travis

Of course! :-)

--
cu
Marco

heathy
+l
--
cu
Marco

On Fri, 06 Jan 2006 20:20:45 +0100, Marco Schwarz wrote:
Two weeks without food are no prob to the most heathy and
well kept fish!

I'm coming late to this debate, having been away from newsgroups for
a year or so but I would concur. As it goes I do get a friend in
to feed my fish when I'm away, but I only feed my fish every other
day in any circumstances, unless they are juveniles when they can
eat smaller amounts once or twice a day. This applies equally to my
small tetras, my malawi cichlids, my betta and my axolotls.

In fact this summer my friend couldn't get my axolotls to eat
for the 8 days I was away (no idea if they didn't like eating from
his hand or they just weren't hungry) but no harm came to them.
In fact they refuse food more often than every two days. The others
don't seem hungry or to expect it either (well, apart from the cichlids,
who like my dog are always begging

And I'm ashamed to admit that sometimes I forget to feed them for
a couple of days too (e.g. lots of work and then wine in the evening)
so my fish do go 3 or 4 days semi regularly. No harm comes to them.
The cardinals are about three years old, which seems a reasonable age
for them.

And there's even an angel in with the tetras

Dunno if I'm doing it _right_ but it works ok.

So, I would say a week is fine, and two is probably fine but if you can
get a friend or neighbour in to top up water and feed, that's great.

Happy fish are a lot tougher than they seem!
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