how long can fish SAFELY go without food?

A week is fine unless you have very special fish. Or unless you have aggressive fish that might eat each other.
 
They should be able to go a week without blinking. That's just a figure of speech, of course, as they have no eyelids.

Anyway, I have done that many times, and they don't seem perturbed at all. Autofeeders are easy enough to find and use, though.
 
A week without food will cause no harm to healthy fish. In fact, the water quality upon your return will be much better.

I suspect most pet fish are terribly overfed, compared to their lives in the wild...

I routinely leave the fish without food for up to two weeks. No ill effects whatsoever.

HTH,
Jim
 
I agree with Jim and Dave--the only exception are fry. Many fry will die if not fed daily.
 
If the fish are accustomed to being fed multiple times per day, then, although they should be able to go for an extended period without eating, the change will certainly affect them to some degree. I would think that the best approach would not be to test their endurance, but to leave them with some kind of food- perhaps an automatic feeder like RHJ suggests, or even one of the dissolving food packs. What kind of fish are they? Some species can be very sensitive to such changes, while others fare much better. Where are you going on vacation-somewhere warm i hope...
 
I apologize for stealing the post but how old of fry do they need to be fed daily? I'm going to be on a 3-day trip in early February and we aquired about 30 baby mollies we have in a breeding net in my 55 gallon community tank. I've been trying to cut down on feeding our tanks but when I tried to feed the fry, the other fish smell the food and attack the net trying to get it. Some even wedge themselves inbetween the net and the glass and I have to free them so we've been feeding that tank along with the breeding net. The fry should be 3-4 weeks old by the time we leave and I was going to have a relative stop by to feed them once while we were gone but if the fry can make it 3 days, I may just leave them be. Kyle
 
For big fish, they can easily handle 3 to 4 weeks without food. Mouthbrooders routinely starved themselves for 3 to 5 weeks without food while incubating. For newborn egg layers fry, they are very tiny and need to eat daily to survive. Many egg layers fry won't make it because they are not given the right first food. As they grow larger and stronger, they can stand longer period without food. New born moutbrooder fry are bigger and stronger and can stand a few days without food. I have stripped week long overdue mouthbrooder fry and they are still alive and well. Water quality is more important than food during your absence. It's better for the fish to be hungry during your absence because any deseased fish will be quickly cleaned up than foul the water. I take 3 weeks vacation each year and never feed fish. But I make sure the water quality is optimum by doing a water change before I leave, and hook up a battery back up air pump to safeguard against power outage.
 
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