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Post by 8 in the Corner on Jan 27, 2009 16:11:21 GMT -5
It makes me wonder though, what you are supposed to feed fish if they need food at least once a day and you are on vacation... Renee, Unless you have babies in the tank, your fish can easily go for a week without any food at all.
Some of my African cichlid females (while holding their eggs and young in their mouths) have gone for up to 3 weeks without food. They get a little thinner, but fatten up nicely after they spit their babies out and start eating again. John
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Post by goldenpuon on Jan 27, 2009 18:40:36 GMT -5
I know that much. But a lot of my fish are babies (my guppies) so they need to be fed at least twice daily. That is what I was talking about.
Thanks for the info though. I need to back off on getting that betta to eat.
Thanks for the update on the clown loach Carl. I will read it. lol
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Post by jonv on Jan 28, 2009 15:24:52 GMT -5
I agree with John in this case. The mouth brooding Africans alone demonstrate that fish really don't use or need food in the same way people do and the lack of food over small periods of time have shown to not do damage. I forget who exactly mentioned this to me, I think it was John (8) though, that very rarely do you ever see a fish die from starvation.
When we were in Indonesia, I had someone stopping over to offer food once a day, but he wasn't giving the same amounts I had shown him. He was giving less. This is the only negative aspect I can say. At that time, I'd had the Red tailed Asian cat and the Albino Channel cat, and under my care, fish were not disappearing. The only logical answer here is Peter didn't give the food the way I showed him, because when I got back after 2 weeks, about 10 fish were missing, among them, 2 larger sized beautiful Peacocks, that I'm still pissed about to this day.
My personal view of feeder blocks, a complete waste of money and an almost guarenteed way to pollute your tank and cloud it up. I'd think that one of those timed feeder machines with the food already put in is worth it more then the blocks, if you plan to be on vacation longer then a couple weeks.
2 weeks is about the limit to where I'd feel safe, IF I were in a case where I wouldn't have anyone able to feed the fish. While brooding females go close to three weeks, I also think going that long with no food source, is likely going to cause extremely high aggression in the tank, competition for food alone, if not going after each other, causing too many problems. I don't have any documentation or tests on this, just only seeing what happend when reduced food was given over a 2 week period. Not to mention, how unsafe i'd feel not even having someone at least check on them, just in case there was a power outage or something broke in the tank.
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