Which Automatic Feeders Do You Use?

[SuperColey1]

I am in the process of looking for Automatic Fish Feeders as will be in Portugal for 2 weeks at the end of August.

I have a Fluval Duo Deep Hood, which the Nutramatic fits into, but I'm not too impressed by it to be honest.

I guess what I'm asking, as well as opinions on other makes, is are there any other feeders that fit this hood but are more reliable and consistent with their depatching of food than the Nutramatic.

Andy

 

[DarkEntity]

honestly depedning on the fish you probably could just leave them without feeding. If im going away for 7 working days i feed them the morning i leave and the day i get back.

I know others do the same. another option would be to get someone to come in and feed them for you. I just dont trust auto feeders.

 

[Viettxboii]

however, he is going for 2 weeks , fish can be fine in 1 week but from what i've read 2 weeks is unsafe...

 

[Lhutch]

test a few

 

[rdd1952]

Honestly, I would find someone to feed them for me or leave them unfed. From all I have read, auto feeders are terribly unreliable. They either don't feed at all which you could do without the expense of the feeder or they hang up and dump way too much food in the tank. That is a nightmare as you will most likely come back to a tank of dead fish as will the excess food will cause a huge ammonia and nitrie spike that your filter can't handle. Also, don't mess with the feeder blocks. They are mostly chalky junk to hold them together and very little food. Your tank will be a mess when you return if you use those.

If you can find someone to feed them for you, measure out cups of food for each day they will do it and simply tell them to dump in a cup each time they come over. And hide the other food so they can't decide that you aren't feeding enough and give them more.

Just keep in mind that you need to feed them very lightly if you do have someone do it or even if you try the auto feeder. The less you feed them, the less waste. Just in case there is a power outage and your filtersd don't start back up, the less waste they are producing the better chance they have to survive without a filter as the ammonia will be relatively low compared to normal amounts of food.

 

[SuperColey1]

Bearing in mind it is the heavily planted tank in the signature, I'm not too worried about ammonia or Nitrate spikes because they just get sorted out naturally. The filter is there more for circulation than for ammonia eating bacteria.

I am concerned though as I have read many reports of feeders cloggin and dumping so I don't want to come back to 25 skeletons when I get back.

I may get my mother to come round every 3 or 4 days and give them a couple of pinches.

Andy

 

[Danno]

It all depends on what feeder you get really
Link

This one only feeds what is in each cuppling. It also uses a gear system that makes it very reliable.

I highly recommend this one from working with one.

 

[rdd1952]

I may get my mother to come round every 3 or 4 days and give them a couple of pinches.

Andy

I wouldn't even do the pinch thing. Just measure a normal feeding amount out and put t an a cup for her to dump in. I had my son feed ours last year when we went on vacation. He has more tanks than I do but I still measured everything out in plastic cups so all he had to do was pour a cup in the tank. Some people even use the pill things that have the days of the week on them. It just makes it easier on the person feeding if they don't have to guess at how much is enough. As you know, people that don't keep fish will always overfeed.