Help!...Need advice on Automatic Fish Feeders
Richie Rich
to purchase. Thanks alot.
Rich
Ralph Watson
I have the Rondomatic feeder. It seems humidity affects it also.
Is there away to prevent the humidity in the fish tank from
clumping up the food in the automatic fish feeder
- ralph watson
rwwa...@ti.com
< i don't speak for texas instruments >
Joe Sabolefski (sa...@netcom.com) wrote:
: Richie Rich (rich...@netnet.net) wrote:
: : Can anyone please advice me on an automatic fish feeder (dry flakes) and place
: I dug up an old reply of mine to a similar question a while back. Here it is:
: I too needed a feeder that would allow me feed tabs and flakes in a certain
: proportion. It seemed that the Rondomatic was the only one with compartments
: available (up until the Fish Mate became available).
: I wanted to make sure that my circulating power head was off (via battery
: backed timer) when the food was released so that quantities of food did
: not get sucked into my filter and rot. My concern with the Rondomatic (in
: addition to the $60 price!) was that it was AC powered. If the power went
: off for a while, the feeding cycle would get out of phase with the power
: head and I didn't want that. I do like that the Rondomatic has "real"
: individual compartments for each feeding. It seems that (from the picture)
: that most or all of the food drops down all at the same time when the little
: buckets swing down.
: I ended up buying the Fish Mate and I guess for $25, it's OK. First, the
: individual compartments are really kind of "holes" in a big one-piece wheel.
: If you pick up the wheel (it just sits on top of the flat surface of the
: feeder), you can look through the holes in it (it kinda looks like a ferris
: wheel). The base of each individual compartment is formed by the flat
: surface it sits on. There are little nubs on the inside of the ring by
: each compartment. The timer, which is really just a AA battery powered clock
: movement drives the little wheel in the middle which is concentricly
: mounted so that the edge of it just nearly touches the feeder wheel. There
: are 8 holes in the timer wheel which equate to one every 3 hours. You can
: put a peg (4 supplied) in any of these holes so that when that peg comes
: around, it hits the nub on the feeder wheel and slooowly afvances the
: feeder wheel. Once the feeder wheel starts moving, the whole compartment
: does not get completely positioned over the hole in the base for nearly
: 2 hours. This is what they mean by "the food is served over several hours".
: The opening that is currently exposed to the outside is kinda isolated from
: the other food compartments by a lip in the lid (look at the picture in the
: Pet Warehouse catalog). The lip doesn't quite touch the feeder wheel, if it
: did the friction might stop it. Due to this design, it looks like you will
: get some of the humid air from the water surface into the rest of the feeder
: (and cause possible clogging).
: They have a nipple on the bottom so that you can connect an air pump to the
: feeder. This would supply a positive pressure to the inside of the feeder
: compartment and is supposed to eliminate the clogging problem. I haven't
: tried an air pump, but I'll probably end up using one (this is a pain,
: 'cause I don't run an air pump on my tank).
: My experience so far with using flake food is that I had the humidity cause
: a clog once such that none of the food was delivered for that feeding). I
: also had this happen once with a compartment that only had an algae wafer
: in it. The other thing that tends to happen with flake food is that the
: feeder wheel will slide over the thin flakes rather than push it along.
: This exacerbates the clogging problem. The other problem is that once you
: start filling the compartments, you can't pick up the wheel (like to clean
: up spilt food, or to remove excess food, or change feeding amount or type).
: The problem I have with feeding over several hours is that my ravenous
: Angel fish gobble up all of the food before any of the little guys get a
: chance. If it were all dumped in at once, the Angles can only eat so much
: at at time, so the little guys get some food too.
: In conclusion, for $25 it's OK. If you will be relying on the feeder a lot
: the Rondomatic looks like it would be more reliable. I don't go away that
: often for long periods of time, so the the Fish Mate will do for me,
: although I'm still thinking of returning it. If you do buy the Fish
: Mate, plan on running a small air pump to avoid clogging.
: --
: Joe Sabolefski E-Mail: sa...@netcom.com
: --------------------------------------------------------------
: My other .sig is a piece of crap too.
Joe Sabolefski
: I have the Rondomatic feeder. It seems humidity affects it also.
: Is there away to prevent the humidity in the fish tank from
: clumping up the food in the automatic fish feeder
One thing that I do (with the fish mate) is have it sit about 6" above
the opening in the aquarium lid. This seems to keep a lot of the humidity
from getting into the feeder. I have the front hood cover slid over
about 2-3" which leaves an opening in the front middle of the tank (I have
a 55G w/ 2 identical hoods, L&R). I then have a 6" square piece of plastic
that sits on the lamp housing sticking out a bit towards the front. The
feeder sits on top of the plastic. This does cut down on humidity, but
for now I'm only using it to drop algae tabs in at night. For flake food
I would surely use the air pump. Maybe the Rhondomatic can somehow be
adapted for an air fitting, positive pressure inside of the feeder does
really work..
I thought the Rhondomatic had a built in heater to keep the food from
clumping. Does it not do the job, or could your heater be broke?
Richard
RENA, a French company make one (very expensive but very good),mains
powered.
EHEIM, a German company make this one, cheaper and battery powered.
I don't know where to get them, ask your aquarium store.
Good luck.