Going on holiday, those things you pop into the tank to feed the fish, are they ok?

[Marne]

We are off on holiday for a few days next week (mon-fri), my brother is house sitting but i'm a bit worried about letting him feed the fish (last year he managed to over feed the dog), are those things that you pop into the tank anygood or am i best to just let my brother feed the fish? I don't want to come back to a tank full of fish food and dead fish .

I've heard some mixed things about them, mostly saying that they just pollute the water. If its only Monday to Friday you are probably better off not feeding them at all. The fish will be fine and you won't come back to manky water.

No, they are crap. Depending on what fish you have and how long you are going, you might be better off not feeding them rather than chucking in a holiday block but small fish need more frequent meals.

You can buy battery powered auto feeders like this (I have this model, it's the best one I've tried) or you could just leave labelled portions of food out for your brother to give the fish and hide the rest of the food

I think i wil have to show him how much to feed them, the guppies will probably need feeding every day (they are greedy), the pleco is easy as he just has a couple algae wafers and would probably be ok without food (if forgotton) as he can find algae in the tank). The pleco is my baby (my favotite) so i would have to kill my brother if he killed him . I will do a big water change before we go so a bit of extra food lying around in the tank shouldn't hurt too much for a couple days (if he over feeds them).