Who should I ask to feed my fish when I’m out of town?
So, you’re planning on heading out of town. No need to worry about bringing someone in to do a water change, but you might want to have someone come by to feed your fish.
These are some common questions that people have when it comes to heading out of town and keeping your fish fed, as well as a couple tips.
How long can fish go without eating?
Who should I ask to feed my fish when I’m out of town?
Should I use an auto feeder for my fish?
Should I use a multi-day fish feeder?
Some tips on how to ask people to feed your fish
Fish feeding gone bad
How long can fish go without eating?
Fish are cold-blooded animals (ectothermic), which means that their body temperatures are the same as the water they’re in. Humans and other mammals are different. We’re what’s called warm-blooded (endothermic), which means that our body temperature is often warmer than the ambient temperature. Our bodies are kept warm by our metabolism, and our metabolism is fueled by food.
As a result, cold blooded animals, like fish, don’t need to eat as often as warm-blooded animals. Going a few days without food is just fine for most of our aquarium fish. Some aquarium fish can even go two weeks without eating!
That being said, there are always exceptions. For example, herbivorous fish like mollies and silver dollars tend to have smaller stomachs and need to eat more frequently.
If you’re out of town for up to a week, you could probably get away without feeding. I would still recommend having someone come in twice for feeding and check-up. It’s always good to have someone make sure all the equipment is running.
Endler guppies enjoying an algae wafer.
Who should I ask to feed my fish when I’m out of town?
There are a few options for feeding when you are out of town—friends, family, neighbors, neighbor’s kids or a professional. The professional is a good choice, but will likely hit you with their minimum visit fee which can quickly add up for a week long trip. However, a good professional will take the time to inspect all your fish, make sure the equipment is running and might even send you some picture updates!
Friends, family and neighbors are free, but you run the risk of them overfeeding and not catching a clogged filter or broken heater for example. Overfeeding is the number one risk of asking someone who is not a professional to feed your fish. I’ve seen many cases where tanks have crashed and all the fish died because a friend overfed.
Should I use an auto feeder for my fish?
An auto feeder is a great choice for feeding your fish while you are out of town. Always test your auto feeder before you leave so that you can make sure it’s set to release an appropriate amount of food. If it’s releasing too much food and you’re planning to use it for a 10 day trip, you are going to have big problems with your water quality.
This is a good product to use if you’re looking for one.
Should I use a multi-day fish feeder?
No. Multi-day feeders are bricks of fish food that are meant to slowly release. They do not work not well. I’ve never used one that works as advertised. I’ve also heard tons of horror stories from clients where they ended up fouling water quality.
Some tips on how to ask people to feed your fish
The most important thing to let people know is that overfeeding is very dangerous. It will result in fouling up the water and the possible death of every fish in the tank. Let them know that it would be better to underfeed your fish than to overfeed them.
Go over your feeding process in detail and write down the directions for your helper to reference. Make sure they know that they should only be feeding fish as much as they can eat. No food should go uneaten because that will result in bad water quality, which is dangerous for fish.
Have your feeding helper feed your fish in front of you so you can make sure they know the correct amount of food to feed before you head out of town.
My last tip is to offer some money. Someone is more likely to listen to you and take the job seriously if you offer them some money. Even if you are paying your neighbor's kid a small amount, they’ll probably pay really good attention to your feeding process because it’s a paid job.
Fish feeding gone bad
Here are a couple recent pictures of fish feeding gone bad while clients were out of town. In both cases all the fish survived. Fortunately big water changes were done as soon as I arrived on the scene.
Excess fish food starting to grow moldy along the bottom of the tank while a neighbor was in charge of feeding.
A lot of food didn’t even enter the tank in this case. This fish was being tormented by being able to look at his dinner but not eat it.
I had a tank crash once because I asked someone to feed and I did not do a good enough job providing detailed instructions. As a result, the tank got overfed big time and my shrimp colony died :(
