automatic food dispenser

Hi,

Is it possible to leave home for five days and have fish fed with some kind of automatic food dispenser? Does such a thing exist? Sorry if it looks like a silly question but I am beginner when it comes to aquaria.

Thanks,

Richard

not that you necessarily want to buy it here, but as an example:
http://www.petsmart.com/global/product_list.jsp? ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_i...

...that's one big long line which you may have to piece together - no spaces.

PennPlax makes a battery operated one that feeds your fish twice a day. You have to adjust it for quantity and the adjustment isn't perfect, but it does the job.

An alternative is to feed your fish a little extra for a few days leading up to your trip and then don't feed them at all while you are away. I've done this for trips as long as 7 days and have NEVER lost a fish.

YMMV,

Thank you for the info. I am glad to see that automatic food dispenser exists. It will make my life easier when I have to go away for a few days.

Richard

I'm a proponent of letting the fish fast for a couple of days. I have read stories about these types of devices causing more harm than good. If I have to leave my fish for more than 5 days, I may ask someone to feed the fish just once. And then, I pre-measure the food and place it in an envelope.

I'd much rather come home to hungry fish than a polluted tank.

I manually feed my fish whenever I feel like it, which can be once a month to a couple of times a week. My auto-feeders feed them twice a day. The feeders will run with or without food, so the trick is to be around periodically to make sure that food is dropping into the tank (they can get clogged and they do run out). I make a pellet/flake food mix which seems to roll out more easily (with just flakes, it tends to clog more easily). You don't have to worry about the feeders running empty for long if you have a mix of fish and a habit of watching them. Their behaviour start changing, from picking at the plants, change of colour, irritability, change in level of activity etc. With practice, I can spot an empty feeder within a couple of days, which is fine for almost any fish.

If you're only gone for 5 days, don't even bother with an automatic feeder. Fish can go 3 weeks to a month without food. Out in nature, fish are accustomed to going very long periods without feeding as their metabolisms are much better equipped to handle it than ours. Overfeeding is the leading cause of death among pet fish, and automatic feeders are known for occasionally failing and dumping too much food at once into the tank, which also fouls up the water.

- Logic316

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