Are any of the auto feeders any good?

[Anonymous]

I am going on vacation starting the Saturday and will be gone for 8 days.

I wonder if I could trust an auto feeder to feed my fish while I am away?

My other concern is makeup water lasting that long, but I can just roll my 33G rubber made in to the room. My makeup water gets pumped in normally from a 5G bucket in the sump. That won't last the whole week, but the Brute easily would handle two weeks.

If I can trust the autofeeder then I don't need a tank sitter. Last year my brother was the tank sitter and he didn't fully understand my instructions. I came home and the sump was slap full of water. Full to the brim. Good thing there were no power outages.

I'd rather not have anyone messing with my tank if possible.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

I had this one, http://www.vitavet.com/Merchant2/mercha ... ode=019214

and it worked just fine until someone dropped it in the tank one day!

I put it on the sump, since it fed dry food, and as the food would get soggy it would get sucked through the return pump and into the tank. Otherwise most just went down the overflow since dry food usually floats.

No endorsement on that store BTW, just did a search for a picture of the thing.

 

[sediener]

Wade has the eheim auto feeder and it seems to be working well with pellet food. He has it set up to drop food into an acrylic pipe that ends under the water so the food actually sinks and makes it to the fish instead of into the overflow. With that sort of setup you could mount the feeder well out of the way so no water gets near it.

- steve

 

[Len]

I had a eheim too and it was fine. It will only take dry foods though, and my fish are way too snobby to eat dry foods :?

 

[GSchiemer]

I have literally tried every auto-feeder (I own six different brands now) and by far the best and most reliable one is the Rondomatic 400. It cost a little more but it's worth it.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=4464&N=2004+62741[/url]

 

[Anonymous]

I have literally tried every auto-feeder (I own six different brands now) and by far the best and most reliable one is the Rondomatic 400. It cost a little more but it's worth it.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=4464&N=2004+62741[/url]

I owned that for about 2 years. Just stopped working one day. It had been not dropping food and getting stuck for months before that.

The upside of the rondomatic, while it worked, was you could feed an exact amount and specify exactly when and how many times a day you wanted to feed. That was nice.

 

[Anonymous]

GSchiemer wrote:

I have literally tried every auto-feeder (I own six different brands now) and by far the best and most reliable one is the Rondomatic 400. It cost a little more but it's worth it.

Got that one and set it up today. I have it dump near the return line. I was hoping the turbulance would get the food into the water column instead of floating. That didn't really work. Some went into the overflow. Oh well. It's set to feed my fish twice a day while I am gone for the next 8 days. Hopefully, the fish will catch on to it in a few days.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

LauraD wrote:

I put it on the sump, since it fed dry food, and as the food would get soggy it would get sucked through the return pump and into the tank.

I tried a pinch of flake in my sump and the return pump obliterated it. The pieces were so small the fish didn't even eat them. They could smell them though.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

GSchiemer wrote:

I have literally tried every auto-feeder (I own six different brands now) and by far the best and most reliable one is the Rondomatic 400. It cost a little more but it's worth it.

Got that one and set it up today. I have it dump near the return line. I was hoping the turbulance would get the food into the water column instead of floating. That didn't really work. Some went into the overflow. Oh well. It's set to feed my fish twice a day while I am gone for the next 8 days. Hopefully, the fish will catch on to it in a few days.

Louey

Can you put some pipe into the water where it drops? Prevents this from happening....

 

[Anonymous]

I can rig it up that way on my new setup, but not this tank. I was planning to use it all the time on the new setup so that my fish can start getting more than one meal a day.

In this tank will all the corals growing right out of the top of the tank along the whole back wall there not anything I can do. The hood gives me limitations.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

Okay, I have been using the Rondomatic Auto Feeder for a few months now. I have it dropping the flake food into a plastic tube (as you all recommended) that keeps the flake in the tube until it sinks. That works well.

My problem is that alot of the flake sticks to the cup and it doesn't fall out. I think it is due to the heat and humidity caused by the halides.

Anyone have any tips on how to make the food "drop" more reliably?

Thanks!

Louey