I will be leaving my fantail for the first time next month and will be gone for 5 days. What is the best way to feed it while I am away? Anything else I should consider? Should I put the light on a timer??

I would put your light on a timer, to prevent any over-growth of anything in the tank.. I think my water got really really cloudy after a few days of leaving the light on 24/7 before maybe it caused high phosphates in the tank, or something?

As for feeding, depending on how long you'll be gone, it might be better to fast them rather than to try to auto-pilot their feeding regimen. I made the mistake of using a 'weekend-feeder' block for one of my betta tanks once, and it just made the water quality REALLY poor, and I don't even know if my betta could see the microscopic food coming out of it with all the green haze it produced.. Otherwise, since overfeeding is purdy much the #1 way to kill goldfish (I found out the hard way ), if you're going to ask someone else to feed them while you're away, I would make individual baggies of tiny amounts of food, labeled for each day, for that person to feed the babies. Then, HIDE the original container of food to prevent the well-meaning feeder from overfeeding the ever-begging fishies (awww, you're still hungry! here, DUMP!).

I'm not sure about how long you can fast them, though I've heard Toothless™ say that goldies can be fasted safely for up to 1-2 weeks at a time. I'm thinking that you shouldn't practice a fasting regimen like this all the time, but in times of short vacations and obvious constipation, they may be the way to go.

My
Hope this helps!

Both options Eatbubbles mentioned will work. I just let my kids go without
food while I'm gone. That lets their system clean out as well. Then you
know they are hungry when you get back, and they're REALLY excited to
see you.

The vacation feeders aren't worth it, like mentioned above. Besides what
was stated, they tend to be devoured by goldies within a day anyways.
And I would recommend a timer for the lights. I've got mine all set up that
way. It helps keep the fish on a normal schedule and I don't have to worry
about turning on and off ALL the time.

I've heard that upto 3 weeks of fasting is pretty harmless.
I never tried 3 whole weeks, but I did try 1 week of fasting and I think its quite positive - cleans out their digestive system.

I'm going away this weekend for 2 days, and one of my fish is on Medigold, the second week starts tomorrow. Should I fast her or have one of my trusted fish-friends feed her for me?

Lol Sydney! You made me laugh lol. Funny, but so true

I would never use a vacation feeder, what a mess. The timed feeders are much better i find. You set them to automatically release food into the tank every day. Works like a charm. - Meg

we are going away for two weeks soon, is it really ok to leave them that long without any food? It's just I was thinking, we would probably do a big water change and clean off all the algea etc b4 we go, so wouldn't that mean alot of the food they scavenge for would be gone?

Sorry to muscle in on on your post Rach1 but just thought I would ask after reading through your thread.

they can last that long but i think id get a automatic feeding thing, not the block but the little machine. And i wouldnt scrape off the algea, as theyd eat that.

I've never seen an automatic feeder in our LFS, only blocks, but I will ask them, they'll be able to tell me about getting one hopefully.
Thanks Meg

Phreno, I'd package up the amount of medigold you want fed in baggies and get someone to feed while you're gone.

No way, I'd starve my babies for 2 weeks. Maybe 2 days with a big hunk of zucchini left in the tank when I left.

Just make sure you get the feeder to where you know how much it's putting out. and if you get someone to feed them while you're gone, bag up the food for each feeding and give very clear instructions with admonitions about messing up the water and making the goldies sick if they feed them too much.

And a quick question:

What is the best food to fish a fantail? Something that sinks?

Sinking food is best. I'm not sure on the pellets and flakes end of things. If you look at the ingredients, you'll want to look for fish protein in the top ingredients. when you look further down the list, go for foods that have less grains. They often split things like corn middlings, corn gluten, coen meal etc, so it looks like there's more fish protein than there is. Spirulina is good as an ingredient. I'm sure others here know brand names that are good.
You could start a new thread on it.

I feed mine gel food and fresh foods mostly.

if its for five days, then let them fast, clean water, healthy fish..