I Need help with koi, and goldfish.?

Question

i need help i will be leaving in two weeks i don't have any one to take care of my fish, is a 45 gallon a little hard to move. I need to know how to keep my fish alive for those 2 weeks! Any advice is apreciated. I have 3 koi 1 small 2 medium and 3 goldfish.

Answer 1

first off, fish do not need to be fed every day to survive, and many can go for longer than that without food. any decent pet supply store should be able to sell you a "vacation block" of slow release fish food. tell them you want the 10-14 day block. if you have fresh plants in your tank, if the fish are really hungry, they will munch on them too. do a 50% water change too before you leave. buy a block, enjoy your trip - don't worry.

Answer 2

Besides the good advice above about vacation feeders and the fact HEALTHY fish can days without feeding (young and weak fish are the exception).
You can purchase automatic feeders. These devices work a lot like a light timer and work best away from aeration that can clog them and also work better with pellets than with flakes.
Here is a link to a site with a picture of one:
http://www.pentairaquatics.com/products/detail/Fish_feeder.html

That is the model I used a lot in my service business.

If you use feeding blocks I suggest the pyramid feeder by AP, not the Banquet Block, which tends to cloud the water.

Answer 3

2 weeks is no big deal a fish can go that long without food. But you can buy a 7 day vaccation block that will feed the fish for 1/2 the time by releasing food at timed intervals. and then let the fish forage for food the other half, believe me they will do fine with no food for all 2 weeks. Option 2 is to buy an automatic feeder which you can set to feed your fish automatically at certain times a day. Personally I would go with the vaccation block and let them forage the other half, it will be good for them.

Answer 4

Oh boy... Just so you know, you're killing your fish. Koi cannot live in anything less than a 125-gallon tank - they're actually pond fish. Some of them can grow up to 3 feet in length. If you've had them for a long time and they don't appear to be growing, it's probably because a) they don't have enough room, and b) the nitrates are stunting their growth. Seriously, either move those fish to a pond or donate them to a pet store. Also, 45 gallons for 3 goldfish is a bit on the small side. Ideally, most goldfish should not be in anything less than 20 gallons EACH.

Now, to answer your question - honestly, your best bet is to just let them be. Those vacation feeders do nothing but pollute the water (most of them barely contain any food), and automatic feeders (the cheap ones, anyway) have a tendency to malfunction and drop too much food in the water. And I wouldn't trust anyone to feed them unless they have fish, as more often than not, they tend to overfeed and you come back home to a dirty tank and/or dead fish. They'll be fine without food for two weeks. If you're really worried, invest in a good-quality automatic feeder. This one here is a really nice one: http://www.petsmart.com/global/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524441809768&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302030133&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=2534374302023693&bmUID=1166292026318&itemNo=2&In=Fish&N=2030133&Ne=2

as is this one: http://www.petsmart.com/global/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=845524441808253&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302030133&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=2534374302023693&bmUID=1166292026232&itemNo=0&In=Fish&N=2030133&Ne=2

If you print out the online PetSmart ads and take them to the store with you, you'll get the online pricing instead of the in-store prices (it'll save you money to do it this way).

Answer 5

You have a couple of options.

The first is to get a dissolving vacation feeder. These blocks contain food within the block that is exposed as the block dissolves.

I'm not a big fan of these as some fish ignore them and you can't control how quickly they dissolve.

The better method is an automatic feeder which will drop food into the tank at set periods. Something like this product: http://fishgeeks.cheappetstore.com/product_info.php?products_id=23024

These can be filled with food and once or twice a day they will empty a set amount of food into the tank.

This is the best way to feed your fish while you are gone.