DIY Autofeeder to feed frozen

[MuralReef]

I remember a few years ago someone had built a frozen autofeeding system using a minifridge and dosers. I haven't taken the time to go through the archives to find it but I am wondering who has thought about doing this. Has anyone built one? What worked? What didn't work? I have the space and power to set something like this up and with the new giant tang I need to have something other than pellets for weekends.

 

[Balz3352]

There is a good thread on reef2reef i followed for a bit but it was determined that food quality drops immensely with frozen auto feeders. So I stopped following.

 

[SynDen]

I am planning on building one eventually for my big tank. With planning for anthias and seahorses, need a way to dose various foods continually. Planning to do a couple dosers, with a small refrigeration unit so that I can keep larger containers and not have it spoil quickly. Plan to eventually dose pods, phyto, and frozen mixture of mysis, brine and some other coral foods.
For frozen foods, you want a large ml doser. Have seen people use the brs dosers with a larger tube in it to accomplish this but I may end up building my own dosing pump so I can size it how I want it. The phyto and pods though will just be standard brs dosers.
In my space, the hardest part of this setup will be finding the right frig unit as I need it to fit up into the rafters above my tank so that I mimize the length of tubing needed and there by further reduce the risk of the food spoiling in the tube between doses and keep food quality as high as possible.

 

[Dr.DiSilicate]

I’d think you would need one that can run backwards. Feed the frozen and then reverse the food back out of the tube and into the fridge. I think profolux(sp?) can do this.

 

[Balz3352]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/automatic-frozen-refrigerated-food-dispenser.335151/

 

[zombie]

I’d think you would need one that can run backwards. Feed the frozen and then reverse the food back out of the tube and into the fridge. I think profolux(sp?) can do this.

So can the Neptune DOS and it uses larger diameter tubing that is more resistant to clogging. The real challenge is preventing the food from clogging the lines. Just reversing the lines without flushing leaves particles that can dry on the tubing and clog it. You need a method to periodically flush the tubes otherwise you dont really save yourself any time.

The one that I have seen that seemed relatively maintenance free ran a low flow feed line of 1/2" PVC into the fridge itself that was fed off a return manifold and food was injected by a DOS into the PVC feed using a tee with a 1/4 sharkbite fitting.

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[SynDen]

hmm ya some black vinyl 1/2" tubing would work pretty good too. I think I would still want to make a way to flush the line every so often. Maybe a small pump Y'd into the line could be set on a timer to flush water from the tank through the line after every feeding

 

[ReefCheif]

hmm ya some black vinyl 1/2" tubing would work pretty good too. I think I would still want to make a way to flush the line every so often. Maybe a small pump Y'd into the line could be set on a timer to flush water from the tank through the line after every feeding

Youd likely want to use RODI water to flush the line. Using tank water is going to leave bacteria in the line which may cause problems with the food. Just a thought.

 

[Balz3352]

Youd likely want to use RODI water to flush the line. Using tank water is going to leave bacteria in the line which may cause problems with the food. Just a thought.

Rodi is going to leave bacteria also but not as much as tank water... I agree with you

 

[jda123]

The only ones that I have seen work look like something that Doc Brown made to feed his dog in Back to the Future.

There is everything that your fish need in NLS pellets. They make all sizes for the larger fish. The spirulina in them gets all the greens that they need as well as the aminos and fatty acids.

 

[SynDen]

The only ones that I have seen work look like something that Doc Brown made to feed his dog in Back to the Future.

There is everything that your fish need in NLS pellets. They make all sizes for the larger fish. The spirulina in them gets all the greens that they need as well as the aminos and fatty acids.

Ya try telling that to my anthias lol. Would eat just about anything including nori but wont touch any pellet. Although hoping eventually to increase their group size and then maybe raying: I can convince at least one to actually eat the pellet, and then perhaps teach the others that they arent so bad.

 

[ReefCheif]

Ya try telling that to my anthias lol. Would eat just about anything including nori but wont touch any pellet. Although hoping eventually to increase their group size and then maybe raying: I can convince at least one to actually eat the pellet, and then perhaps teach the others that they arent so bad.

What type of anthias do you have? Weve had really good luck with bartletts and bi colors taking to pellets, lyratails not so much. Ive found that soaking pellets with frozen mysis and selcon seems to help attract them to taking the pellets. Then I gradually reduce the amount of mysis until the mix is just soaked pellets. Once theyve taken to the soft soaked pellets we start mixing in just straight dry pellets until thats all thats being fed. We have a ton of clients who want colorful schooling fish but wont take 5 minites out of their day to feed any frozen so weve had to come up with something.

 

[SynDen]

Ya lyretails. I tried soaking before, but not much luck. Luckily I dont mind feeding frozen but as I start to scale up into the bigger tank I will want to move more toward pellets as much as possible.