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Frozen Food Auto-Feeder????


Dominic
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Has anyone in the history of fishkeeping developed or has found or rigged up an auto feeder for their Salt tank that will use Frozen foods????

I've been looking everywhere on the net and no dice. I thinking of designing one myself could be a good product.

Please send me your thoughts!!!

Thanks

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It would be possible, but ungainly and expensive....a refrigeration unit combined with an autofeed unit with some sort of secure dispensing function.....I would imagine it would be at least as big as 14" square and weigh a good 7kg....and if it could be done for under $300, I would be amazed.

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Has anyone in the history of fishkeeping developed or has found or rigged up an auto feeder for their Salt tank that will use Frozen foods????

I can't see it being feasible, especially considering the amount of rinsing and straining that is necessary with most frozen fish/coral foods to avoid adding the preservatives (which are usually phosphate-based) to your tank. Even if the rinsing & straining steps were done manually before stocking the unit you probably wouldn't want to keep more than 2 or 3 days worth of food in there at a time.

Here's an idea if you're mostly feeding zooplankton-type stuff (rotifers, various pods, mysis shrimp) that I think is probably cheaper to rig up: a Live Food auto feeder. A simple "dark" refugium can be had by filling a 5g tank/rubbermaid/bucket/whatever with live rock rubble and keeping it upstream, so it gravity feeds into the tank. To encourage the infauna into the gravity feed you can keep a small LED (moonlight or book light) near the bulkhead or drain, put it on a timer and have it power on for a few hours, starting at an hour or so after your last display lights go out. When the various pods, mysis, and other infauna investigate the light many of them will get swept into your display tank. I'd post a pic of such a unit made from one of those cheap Walmart acrylic 5g tanks fitted with a simple 3/4" bulkhead and PVC return but I just finished moving and haven't set anything back up yet... heck, I can barely see the floor in my living room because most of my system is still in rubbermaids running with powerheads and precariously balanced lights. :)

--

Lucas Thompson

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  • 2 months later...

Maybe consider looking at the designs of fridges with ice cube dispensers...maybe there are mini ones out there that could inspire...either way it is probably gonna be a fairly large and noisy setup. Best of luck and be sure to post if you have any ideas as I have wanted one myself.

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Wow, ok I did a little bit of research on countertop ice cube dispensers and the cheapest I could find for one that was 36"x30"x22" goes for about $2000 and it would require some major alterations (ie timer with a quantity limiter of sorts). However, if there is somone out there that is into the refridgeration process, it might be worth your while to consider creating one! I would buy one for sure.

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  • 4 weeks later...

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