Feeding fish while away on holiday

[CozyCat]

Hi all,

7 weeks until Christmas!! Yay!!

I'm curious to know what you do to maintain your tanks and feed the fish when you go on holidays?

I'm going on January Christmas holidays with the family for three weeks. I've never left the tanks with no one home to feed them for so long.
I'm not worried about water changes because the tanks are so packed with plants I have to remove some so the fish have room to swim lol.
Currently trialling an automatic feeder on one tank. So far it works great for flake food, I need to test it on pellet food next.
I'm also going to get lids for the tanks since evaporation is an issue, and being in the southern hemisphere, the weather is warming up. So I am thinking of asking someone I know who keeps fish if they could pop round to my house maybe once each week to do water top-ups, check the auto feeders, and feed the plecos.
I'm not sure how long bristlenose plecos can go between feeding algae wafers. Any thoughts?

 

[TNG]

I'm not comfortable leaving for 3 weeks, but hey, if you've to go on holiday you have to go.

I use Eheim fish feeders, work well for flakes (crush the flakes first) and small pellets, but only if you have many fish to feed and the feed opening is around at least 3mm. Another thing about fish feeders is that the food drop opening should not be facing the water in "stop position", or evaporation from the tank will soak the food and stop it from dispensing. Once you have the tank lids on, evaporation from the opening where you place the feeder is quite high as it's the only opening. Also, keep the base of the feeder at least 100mm from the water.
Best thing to do is set it up and let it operate for a week before you go, to see that everything works.

It's worth considering having 2 heaters in each tank in case one fails. The chance of that happening is quite rare, but is known to happen. Note also that if you have 2 heaters, each set at 25C, the water temp will most likely be around 27C.

 

[emeraldking]

If you'd be leaving for a week or almost two weeks, those fish would be okay without being fed. But if you'd stay away for longer, I'd would ask someone you trust with your fish to feed them. But there are also feeding machines you could use.