Saltwater Automatic Feeders - Frozen Foods?

Question

I have a clown, one firefish, one long nose hawkfish, a green mandarin, and a bicolor goby. all of them love to eat frozen mysid and brine shrimp and not much else. Of course the mandarin goes for the pods. But I am planing on being away for possibly up to two weeks. I don't really have any options other than to get an automatic feeder for these guys, b/c I am new to the area and I don't have anyone who could check up on them and feed them for me. Are there any options out there to have an automatic feeder to feed frozen foods? I would give them live food, but I have a 37 gal. eclipse and I am not sure how I could hook up something to that to give them a continuous supply of live food. The tank is completely covered with a hood. Could I just dump a bunch of pod and brine cysts in there to hatch while I am gone? That would ruin the water quality. Does anyone know of how I could pull a two-week vacation and still have live fish when I get back w/o having to give them unwantedfood

Answer 1

Most fish, when fed regularly and well, can go for up to 3-4 weeks without eating. I would feed them well for a couple weeks before I left and not worry about them.

If you just don't feel right about just leaving them, there are aquarium maintenance services that are bonded and will come in and feed your fish and do maintenance on the tank. Just look under aquarium maintenance in the yellow pages.

You are very lucky to have a mandarin (they are beautiful fish, aren't they?) that is eating for you. I have heard they are almost impossible to keep alive in home aquariums unless you have a couple hundred pounds of live rock for them to hunt in and around.

Answer 2

I would just continue as normal. Your fish should be fine, also if your tank is established you should have a nice supply of pods all over the place. The will be fine for 2 weeks. If your still worried, ask your local pet store if have any live foods. Don't let them trick u into buying a brine hatchery. Brine shrimp only live as long as they have a yoke sack unless your expericenced enough to kept them into adult hood. To make long story short, you will have a bunch dead brine in your tank, and it make cause poor water quaility with a tank that small.

Answer 3

I'm not sure who makes it but I saw a brine shrimp hatcher/feeder that hooks onto your tank in one of my LFS.
I will try to find out more about it tomorrow.
You may not be able to hook it onto YOUR tank???