Auto Feeders

[gnashty]

Im looking to add an autofeeder for when im out of town. what are the best ones out there and am I limited to flake/pellets? and where is the best place to put it? I hate the idea of a load of pellets dropping in to the water and flying around everywhere in the flow since i normally shut down all the pumps when I feed

 

[enderg60]

ehiem, expensive(~$40) but totally worth it.

 

[gnashty]

http://www.marinedepot.com/Eheim_Feed_Air_Automatic_Feeder_Automatic_Fish_Food_Feeders-Eheim-EH3581-FIFDFEAF-vi.html">http://www.marinedepot.com/Eheim_Feed_Air_Automatic_Feeder_Automatic_Fish_Food_Feeders-Eheim-EH3581-FIFDFEAF-vi.html</a>

this one?

 

[weaglereefer]

I have an Aquachef. Works great with pellets. Set the pumps on an outlet controlled by the RKL and have the pumps turn off at 11:55, food dumps at 12, pumps back on at 12:05. Took the fish about 3 days to figure out that when the pumps turn off, food is coming in.

Of course, if you have pumps on battery backups, it will require something more advanced...

 

[thbrewst]

gnashty;583022 wrote: http://www.marinedepot.com/Eheim_Feed_Air_Automatic_Feeder_Automatic_Fish_Food_Feeders-Eheim-EH3581-FIFDFEAF-vi.html">http://www.marinedepot.com/Eheim_Feed_Air_Automatic_Feeder_Automatic_Fish_Food_Feeders-Eheim-EH3581-FIFDFEAF-vi.html</a>

this one?[/QUOTE]

I have that one on my FW tank and it works quite well. I use it for flake. Never had a problem and it has plenty of feeding options for me.

I have an AquaChef that I bought for the FW tank but did not use it because the configuration of the feeder and set-up of my tank would not work. It just hit me the other day that I still have it so I am going to set it up for my SW tank and put pellets in (my crew are not big fans of flake).

I have a Gen 1 RK so I don't think it will allow me to schedule when the pumps turn off. There is a manual button to enter Feed Mode and you can set how long it lasts.

 

[weaglereefer]

If you have a canopy and your tank has a center brace, you can zip tie the feeder to the brace. That's what I did, makes for easy access to adjust timer and feeding options.

 

[acroholic]

gnashty;583022 wrote: http://www.marinedepot.com/Eheim_Feed_Air_Automatic_Feeder_Automatic_Fish_Food_Feeders-Eheim-EH3581-FIFDFEAF-vi.html">http://www.marinedepot.com/Eheim_Feed_Air_Automatic_Feeder_Automatic_Fish_Food_Feeders-Eheim-EH3581-FIFDFEAF-vi.html</a>

this one?[/QUOTE]

I just picked up one of these for my FW Discus tank. It is a nice unit. Petsmart sells these locally for the same price Marine Depot does, $39.99. Got mine there yesterday. It drops in pellets up to 4x daily. I'm growing out these Discus babies and they eat pellets in the day, and i feed them frozen at night when I'm around.

 

[gnashty]

thanks, Ill have to pick one up

 

[acroholic]

gnashty;583708 wrote: thanks, Ill have to pick one up

Just make sure you play with it and dispense food at a couple different opening positions. I dumped about a tablespoon of small pellets out when I was practicing with it, and I only had it open 3 clicks from closed. Flakes wouldn't dump out like tiny pellets would.

One possible downside to this unit is that is only feeds one type of food, but what I did was mix a spirulina based and a protein based pellet together in the hopper, so they do get two kinds of food at each feeding.