2 weeks without food for my goldfish during my holiday

[adnan 597]

Hi everyone!

Just wanted to share my experience regarding how I deal with my goldfish feeding issue during my absence from home.  Usually during my holiday I am away for 2 weeks which is relatively long period of time. Well, before I was worried what will happed with my fish if I don't feed them and decided to ask my neighbors to feed them. I strictly instructed how and when to feed my fish.......  and when I back...although my instructions the situation in my aquarium was absolute disaster, stinky water plus dead fish......I am sure that my neighbors did their best but the lack of aquarium knowledge lead to these  results. Well I learned my lesson and  for the next holiday I decided to use aquarium automatic feeder. After a while a good friend of mine (he has an aqua farm for goldfish and tropical fish in Bulgaria) shared that if my goldfish are adult, so 2 weeks period of time without any food is no problem at all, just a week before the holiday the goldfish have to feed bit more, and a day before to leave to do aquarium water change. He is very deeply in the aquatic knowledge and the hobby but although that I was a bit sceptic. So during my next holiday I followed his instructions but just in case I put one of the security cameras on my goldfish tank in case something is going wrong  .........well everything was good, when I back I found very active and hungry fish and christal clear water. 

Since then I don't worry at all for my goldfish, even my jumbo flowerhorn has no issue at all. 

That is my personal experience, not a recommendation,  just  wanted to share, and the decision depends you. 

[Arctic Mama 3,636]

Yes, generally speaking a fast is safer than too much food, and unless you’re portioning out the fish food into bags it’s easy for a neighbor to overdo it. I usually have someone come in ONCE while I am gone to feed, so they’re getting a little once per week, and that’s also a good compromise for longer trips. But less is definitely more, it’s terrible to come home to a disaster of a tank when someone was trying to help

[Caretta Rose 93]

This is reassuring to hear! I don't know anyone in my area to fish-sit for me. There is a local aquarium service who can feed and do water changes, but it is over $70/visit. The longest I've left my fish without feeding was 5-6 days and they seemed fine when I returned, but I DID worry the entire time.