# Baby cory's and holiday feeding



## mort (6 Sep 2017)

I recently spotted that my Adolfi cory's had bred and I have at least two small kittens at the moment. The biggest is about a cm and the other half that. Now I didn't even know they had bred as the tank is pretty densely covered. I tried over the summer to entice them too and its only a 30l due to this. I'm also due to be away for 8 days from Saturday (so 6 days without feeding) and I wasn't planning on feeding the fish but was just wanting a little reassurance that the littlins will be ok considering I didn't even know they were in there (although there might be more hopefully). There should be some natural food produced by the tank but its a long time since I've had baby cory's.

Thanks in advance.


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## Planted Bows (6 Sep 2017)

Get a holiday block  

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## dw1305 (6 Sep 2017)

Hi all, 





Planted Bows said:


> Get a holiday block


Don't get a holiday block, you don't need it if the tank is heavily planted, and I'm a bit dubious about them. 

If you have some moss from another tank?, put it in, and/or add some dead leaves (partially decayed would be perfect) and they should be OK. <"Repashy Food"> might also be an option? added just before you leave.

cheers Darrel


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## mort (6 Sep 2017)

Thanks Darrel, i'm very dubious about holiday blocks as well.

The tank is heavily planted already with plenty of moss but i can scrounge some extra from another tank and add some of the decaying stuff. I will probably hatch some baby brine as well which should hang around for a few days. Could also go dipping in the outside mini pond for a couple of extras but won't go over the top.

I've got some vitalis tropical grazers that have a similar ingredients list to the food you listed but not gel bound. I'm guessing a small piece would be fine for a couple of days but will pop some in a glass of tank water tomorrow to see how it fairs.


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## Planted Bows (6 Sep 2017)

So just a question, I'm going on holiday for a week at the end of September. Would they not need a holiday block then? I always have been dubious about them but didn't see any other way around it? 

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## mort (6 Sep 2017)

It really depends on what species you have imo. Normal fish can generally go a week without food easy enough (an auto feeder would be better). Just looking it seems like vitalis do a better longer feeder but i'm thinking more of those horrible chalky looking blocks you used to get who's breakdown is hard to control and probably pollute way more than they help.
I don't generally feed as i'm only away one week a year and the tanks are all heavily planted, or my reef which has large refugium and is full of life.


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## roadmaster (7 Sep 2017)

I'm in agreement that fishes can go a week without human introduced food's.
Problem often is, folk's want to way overfeed before they leave for vacation or whatever ,and or way overfeed upon their return.
Had very bad experience with auto feeder and juvenile Discus.
Malfunction dumped too much food  = Ammonia,nitrite spike)


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## zozo (7 Sep 2017)

roadmaster said:


> I'm in agreement that fishes can go a week without human introduced food's



Yup easily and fish are a bit like reptiles, cold blooded, take for example a snake, in proportion maybe not the best example but still a snake can go months with one meal.
For fish it might be a bit less, but depended on the sp. omnivorous fish will also nibble from vegitation (algae). Micropredators search and hunt for micro organism (Darrels dead partialy decayed leaves provide this).. And if still don't feel completely comfortable with the idea, note since fish are cold blooded environment temperatur regulates their metabolism and activity, so lowering the temperatur to an absolute minimum the fish can take will help to go even longer without food.

Something not oftenly discussed, but keeping fish in the high end range of the adviced temp can cost them years of their lifetime. Best example are sticklebacks, keep them at a steady 15°C high oxygenated invironment and they go easily age 5 years.. Keep them in a steady 23°C or even warmer than you are lucky if they only reach age 1 year even shorter is very common. Regardles feeding regime.

Last year i had Trichopsis pumila breeding, without notcie also in a heaviy planted tank. I never fed anything to help the fry.. I thought if they manage to hadge and live for weeks without me noticing, they can go longer.. And they did till they fed on what i give the adults.. And my home bred pumilas are still alive today.  Last year i had goldfish fry in the garden.. A few very small ones i missed, stayed outdoor all winter long in big tubs.. They survived for months without me knowing they where in there. Found them in the spring cleaning te tubs..


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## mort (7 Sep 2017)

The tanks temp is room temperature until it dips down to 20c as this seems to fit their natural tolerance and I always give the fish a cooler period if they would naturally have one. 
I'm not overly concerned about leaving them but these are meaningful offspring since out of the 6 adolfoi I bought only two lived. I think it was the way they were shipped to the shop as I lost 5 out of 6 pandas as well bought at the same time, that or just massed produced poor quality fish. These two adults however have made nice fish so hopefully the kittens will do the same.

I have pencilfish fry in another tank and I can see them actively feeding on the natural food in there so aren't worried.

I've left my bigger tropicals like clown loaches, bigger cats, silver dollars etc for a couple of weeks without feeding and you'd never even know it. Guess it doesn't do any harm as they all age between 18-23 years old.


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## Planted Bows (7 Sep 2017)

So my tank is set to 24/25c I have a pair of fighters and a breeding group of blackchins along with shrimp. Would you say drop temp now? Or drop to 20/22 as I've been told high temps aren't suited to some fish? Is 24/25c about right? 

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## mort (7 Sep 2017)

Planted Bows said:


> So my tank is set to 24/25c I have a pair of fighters and a breeding group of blackchins along with shrimp. Would you say drop temp now? Or drop to 20/22 as I've been told high temps aren't suited to some fish? Is 24/25c about right?
> 
> Sent from my G8141 using Tapatalk



It's only certain species that benefit from a break. I tend to look at seriously fish as they list regional variations in temperature that each species is naturally found at. For the fighters and the black chins they list 22-30c and 22-27c, so they might benefit from a slightly cooler period but 24c is probably about right. 

With one of my tanks I keep them at a lower temperature in the winter months and as this is about room temperature it naturally increases over the warmer months. The one with the clown loaches is set to 24c and during the summer it rises to about 26-27c which is fine as they range from 24-30c in the wild.

Temperature is however a small part of it.


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## AverageWhiteBloke (7 Sep 2017)

I was going to start a new thread about this to help cure the obsessive but I might as well put it here... Lots of posts about going away and what to do regarding ferts and fauna but IME we all obsess too much. I've recently been through a "conscious uncoupling" for the want of a better description which is fair to say wasn't too acrimonious  The tank has been knocked off for 5 weeks, that's totally knocked off from the power, no filters, no lights nothing. The tank contained 2 Rams, 6 Corys, 6 Embers, 9 ottos and about a dozen Amanos.
I've managed to liberate the tank down to my office on Wednesday and to be fair although some plants look a bit leggy its in great shape. The tank is totally algae free which I've never seen before in the history of this setup.

Granted a couple of days before it being knocked off I did a large water change, cleaned the filter and I had been dosing at EI levels prior. I set the tank up again by removing about 70% of the water and emptied the water out the filter canister, never even cleaned the media as it clearly hadn't been dirtied, the top floss was as new as it went in. The tank usually runs at about 24 deg and when I picked it up it sat at 19 deg. It would have got some ambient sun light from a nearby window and that's it. Sitting last night I observed that I think I'm three embers down (one I lost transporting, got stuck on top of MC carpet) and possibly a couple of ottos. No doubt the Amano and possibly others had a feast on a corpse or two and luckily I had some oak and almond leaves in which were just veins. Other than that everything is fine.

So yes I would agree, slowing things down with temp and lighting certainly helps and I wouldn't fret if I was away certainly for less than two weeks. We over feed our plants and fauna at the best of time constantly pushing for growth. This experience has learned me that a heavily planted aquarium is far more robust than we think and not as fragile as we are led to believe. In fact with just a little bit of light and a nutrient rich substrate plants need very little encouragement from us to look after themselves. The issues arise when we start putting too much light on them driving up their needs... I think we already knew that anyway but I had to witness it myself to see how much my plants didn't need me and I will be keeping that in mind the next time I miss a dose or a WC and save a lot of fretting. Will also be looking a lot closer at my dosing regime going forward.

On the other hand, as you can imagine the fish are really happy to see me


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