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Ideas for feeding Trigger while away

A

Absinthe

Anyone have a good idea on how to feed a triggerfish while on vacation?

I dont think an automatic feeder with dry food would be sufficient for the fish...at least not for more than a few days.

I plan on loading the tank with snails, hermits and peppermint shrimp that the trigger will likely ignore while small and if well fed, but I am hoping it will take advantage of them as food as needed.

Any ideas other than hiring a tank sitter?

Thanks
 
C

Carlo

The downside to this for you will be that once the trigger has gotten a taste of your livestock (because he's hungry) he will most likely continue to do so even when fed properly again.

How long are you going to be away for? Is there no one available that could stop by your place and feed the tank(s) marked/prepared portions for each day?

I've been in a similar situation with no one available to feed the tank for me and I improvised the best I could. I froze some cubes in a few different size bottles using RO/DI water. I then mounted those bottles on the back of the tank in a cooler turned almost on it's side so that when they melted they would disperse the food into the tank and also help with the evap water. I used sizes form a liter to 2 liters to gallon jugs. I packed the cooler with a combination of frozen packs and RO/DI made ice cubes.

I had experimented a head of time with this and during the 2 trial runs I got 3.5 and 4 days out of this setup. I was gone 7 days total so I'd guess the fish were only without food for 3 days at most which wasn't to bad considering they are normal fed very well.

This is probably more work then the average person wants to do but it's the only thing I've found or done in the past so I'd thought I'd share what I did.

Oh I also used a regular feeder set on timers and mixed a bunch of different foods together in it (I do this all the time btw) including broken up nori.

Carlo
 
C

Candi

What about saltwater feeder shrimp? They look just like the freshwater ghost shrimp but are marine, meaning sometimes the smater ones hide and last quite awhile before being hunted down, I used to get them for my puffer and just got some for my new baby puffer... my 6 lines will also hunt them down. If nothing else it would be cheaper then peppermints and hopefully keep your trigger from eating snails and other stuff in the future that you dont' want him to eat? Mike told me you could catch them locally, not sure if its warm enough yet, but I've always ordered mine online.
 
C

Candi

http://aquaculturestore.com/swinverts.html

I ordered 25 of the "common shore shrimp" last week (was actually looking for small ones since my puffer is a baby, the shrimp I got are easily over an inch. This was my 2nd order from the company, quick shipping, no DOA's, and this time lots of shrimp with eggs (don't think any will grow up but if nothing else if the females aren't eaten before giving birth extra free fish food!)
 
C

Carlo

PMolan said:
Silly question. Are these a good idea to add to a refugium, or would they eat the pods.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good question to me. I'm waiting to hear an answer on this one too.

Carlo
 
C

Candi

I think they would probably eat pods, depending how well they were fed otherwise.. they do eat algae too... probably best suited for a food/treat and not something to attempt to keep in a refug. long term, better off just setting them free in your display and letting the fish hunt them down.
 
C

Candi

My original green spotted puffer was alive when I got my first order, so they didn't last long enough to breed LOL (although I did see one of the originals in there before I got more)

I have some right now in a seperate little 3g, including some with eggs so I'll let you know how that goes... I believe they go through a few different stages though and would require specialized feeding to survive long enough to actually grow up... much like freshwater ghost shrimp which I think are a pain to breed. I wish I could find the saltwater version of freshwater cherryshrimp, I have so darn many of those things and they won't stop multipling LOL I actually use them as feeders now sometimes (but they don't last long in the sw obviously)
 
mfisher2112

mfisher2112

I just looked up those cherry shrimp. I wonder if my Discus would enjoy those. She goes NUTS over live brine. She eats pellets, but begrudgingly. And there is no good source of live brine where I live.
 
C

Carlo

mfisher2112 said:
I just looked up those cherry shrimp. I wonder if my Discus would enjoy those. She goes NUTS over live brine. She eats pellets, but begrudgingly. And there is no good source of live brine where I live.
Click to expand...

You can hatch baby brine yourself. It's pretty easy to do.
 
mfisher2112

mfisher2112

LOL! You are not the first person to tell me that.

I have kept and bred just about every kind of dwarf south american cichlid, successfully bred Discus, kept just about any kind of fresh water and brackish water fish (including dwarf puffers), and now have been pretty successful with salt water.

BUT, there are TWO things I cannot for the life of me seem to do, despite any and all efforts:

1: Keep live plants ALIVE
2: Breed stoopid brine shrimp

I have no idea why, but I gave up on both after MANY failed attempts!

LOL! Guess it just aint meant to be!
 
C

Candi

If you're anywhere near Port Monmouth you're welcome to come and get some cherry shrimp when we get back home in a week and try, if your fish like them you could set up a small tank (I use one of those 5g all in one's from Walmart, they are marineland but renamed regent there (internal paperwork all says marineland)... can't get the darn things to stop breeding. When full grown they go for about $5 each in petstores so I feel a bit bad using them as feeders but I have more then I can even give away (might try selling on ebay/craigslist now that it's warming up).

Let me know if you want to try some, if it goes well I'm happy to give you some to get your own little breeding colony going :)
 
mfisher2112

mfisher2112

Thanks Candi. Nowhere near port monmouth. :) I'm in the "deep south".

Although, I was going to suggest that you sell them on ebay. Looks like others are doing it and doing pretty well. I guess if there is little cost involved to you, you could build up a small paypal account pretty quickly that way. Might offset some of the cost for other more important things, like REEFS! ;D

I'll let you know if I ever make it up that far.
 
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