To feed or not to feed????

I am headed out on a camping trip this coming weekend. Will be gone from Friday until early afternoon on Monday. I move all my dogs over to our boarding kennel so I plan to just leave the fish without feeding them and no one has to even come into my house. They should be fine if feed around noon on Friday and then again on Monday, right? My new puppy is going with us and my new kitten is staying with one of my employees.
The Endler babies are still really small but the tank has tons of plants and a huge sponge filter so they should have plenty to feed on in there, right? I am more worried about someone overfeeding than them being hungry. I normally skip one or two days each week so I will just be skipping the two days in a row.
I AM a bit worried about heaters now that the one got stuck, but most of the tanks don't have the heaters plugged in yet and it's supposed to be really warm right thru the weekend.
Hopefully that hurricane headed up the coast will listen to the forecasters and really head out to sea on Friday as they are predicting. Otherwise I will be camping in my car!!!

They will be fine with out food for 2 days. Fish can go without food for quite some time. Even fry are ok without food for a couple of days, provided they are super young.

nyleveiam wrote:They should be fine if feed around noon on Friday and then again on Monday, right?
The Endler babies are still really small but the tank has tons of plants and a huge sponge filter so they should have plenty to feed on in there, right?

No problem.

If fish can survive 18 days in shipping without eating, they can survive the long weekend. Recently, I had Endlers and other livebearers without food for over 10 days in one of my office tanks (I was on holidays). All survived, picking off the algae and the plants growth. Fish are amazing survivors.

Before fish are bagged for travel, they are usually unfed for 2-3 days just to clear out their guts so they don't pollute the small volume of water in shipping. I find they begin to show weight loss at about 10 days, but rebound quickly. I haven't been doing cruel experiments - I've learned this via picking up neglected fish and from travel times. Nature is not always bountiful and they have to be able to survive with limited food. Micro-predators don't find prey every day.

We are more likely to harm them with overfeeding than with a few lean days every now and then. I skip feeding all my adult fish one day a week, and they are very much the better for it. I used to have a lot of tetras suffer and die from "egg binding", but with a leaner feeding regime, that has vanished - it was obesity pure and simple.

If fish are well fed and healthy before a few days' fast, they will often spawn upon the arrival of food. They are adapted to lean periods with the seasonal changes in their habitats. They'll be fine.

Well, midst all the hassle of packing up and leaving on Friday, plus working most of the day, I forgot to feed the fish. Came back today and they are actually in MUCH better shape than if I had been here feeding them. Water is crystal clear, fish are happy and all babies look great!
I really do believe I am still over feeding them, in spite of trying to be more careful about that.
I did find quite a bit of brown algae in my rainbow fish tank, but that is to be expected since the tank is so new. Numbers are fine due to using cycled filters and substrate but I guess the brown algae doesn't care about that.

Good to hear it worked out !