Fridge Auto Feeder

[Leon1972]

Everything will be fed through a mini fridge dosing pump autofeeder feeding everything, including my fish, the reef nutrition line. Right now I'm looking at the Doser One Evolution Dosing pump because it will dose in increments as low as .1ml. Any advice, experience or input on auto feeding would be appreciated.

[michaelkittrell]

I keep thinking about trying to do something like this, but how long will fish food keep in a refrigerator... maybe a week? seems like a lot of effort to prepare fish food every week and if it goes bad early, will that hurt your fish? I worry alot about the bacteria and spoiled food.

The biggest problem imo is keeping the system clean. If you run a tube out the side of your refrigerator, what happens to the remants sitting in the tube between feedings... they sit there and rot, grow bacteria etc. To combat this I thought add a water line and flush the feeding tube line out with fresh water after each feeding. I think this would work pretty well.

Another idea might be to get a tube made out of hydrophobic materials which *might* prevent any liquid from remaining behind in the tube, I really don't know for sure it would work (because your food would contain stuff other than water which might reduce the surface tension defeating the hydrophobic surface's repellant properties)... let alone where you could find hydrophobic materials outside of research labs.


So then I keep thinking ok go frozen, but then you have to get a non-frost free refrigerator or the constant defrost cycles will make your food cubes stick together... then you have to have some sort of mechanism to physically parcel out the food because it won't be in liquid form. Then you have to figure out how to deliver it to the outside without introducing moisture laden air to the feeding chute or you'll get ice build up which could block it or give you the rot problem again. The feeding chute would have to empty into a water bath which after a set time would then dump into the tank. Now that has to be cleaned up too... so the freezer version seems like an awful lot of things that could fail.


So thats why I haven't done it yet... I don't like the refrigerator idea because i don't want to make fish food every week... and the freezer one seems too likely to fail or at least be constant problems. Before I moved, I fed pellets and flakes and occasionally chop up a shrimp or seaweed.

[Leon1972]

I have asked all these questions and others habe answered them. The food stays good as long as it would in any other fridge. As far as food going bad I am going to have a pvc pipe running in and out of my fridge through two holes on the side. A hose will br piped to each end from my sump and a the feeder tubing will be piped into a venturi valve in the fridge. The two ends of the pvc will go to my sump. This will solve the dpoiling issue as all food stays on fridge till its time to feed.
Havent you googled these? They are all over the internet. A lot of people are doing it with a one month shelf life on the food just like if it were in a standard fridge. Google it dude. Its all over the internet and safe and easy

[Leon1972]

http://m.youtube.com/results?q=autofeeder%20fridge&sm=3

[michaelkittrell]

A month on refrigerated foods, thats a lot better than what I know of. Is that commercial processed? can you point me at that stuff? I was looking at home made and the threads I had been reading people were only doing weekly batches because it went bad by 2 weeks.

Shrug, I thought you asked for input. I gave some and I feel like I got a pretty rude response but whatever.

And no, last time I thought about building one of these was 2-3 years ago. There were no youtube videos or google of anyone doing it that I ever found. Couple weeks ago I came across a video of a guy who made a non-compressed gas refrigerated prototype food dispenser, but it looked too energy inefficient and small to me.

I was so into this idea of autofeeding that I drew up plans for a fully automated baby brine shrimp factory complete with gut loading. Just fill a dispenser with eggs and it would batch new bbs daily until the eggs ran out. Only problem was that it would've taken up too much space in my fish room (and probably was too complex to work consistently anyhow).

[Leon1972]

Originally Posted by michaelkittrell

A month on refrigerated foods, thats a lot better than what I know of. Is that commercial processed? can you point me at that stuff? I was looking at home made and the threads I had been reading people were only doing weekly batches because it went bad by 2 weeks.

Shrug, I thought you asked for input. I gave some and I feel like I got a pretty rude response but whatever.

And no, last time I thought about building one of these was 2-3 years ago. There were no youtube videos or google of anyone doing it that I ever found. Couple weeks ago I came across a video of a guy who made a non-compressed gas refrigerated prototype food dispenser, but it looked too energy inefficient and small to me.

I was so into this idea of autofeeding that I drew up plans for a fully automated baby brine shrimp factory complete with gut loading. Just fill a dispenser with eggs and it would batch new bbs daily until the eggs ran out. Only problem was that it would've taken up too much space in my fish room (and probably was too complex to work consistently anyhow).

The reef nutrition food line(http://reefnutrition.com/). No, you cannot just toss it in a container and run it. It must remain refridgerated but thats why you pipe it into the refridgerator. look at the utube video I linked to as well. Its not much work. two holes in a fridge with some pvc to your sump and your done. let your return lines do the heavy work.

I didn't mean to be rude and rereading it I don't think I was very rude.
You stated why you haven't done it and I simply explained how it could, and currently is, being done now. It sounded like you didnt know about how it was currently being done and you thought it couldn't be done with perishables. You also stated that it was something that you would be interested in. Therefore I explained how others were doing it. What is rude about that?

[CyclistMT]

Some additional info on this very subject in this thread including other ideas. but Aquabacs is still the design I'm looking to emulate (inspired by Steve Weast design).

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1760416

[Leon1972]

Originally Posted by CyclistMT

Some additional info on this very subject in this thread including other ideas. but Aquabacs is still the design I'm looking to emulate (inspired by Steve Weast design).

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1760416

Thats too much work for me plus it requires daily injections. Can leave it for two weeks, let alone a month, like you can the mini fridge setup. I need to be able to go on vacation.

[shifty51008]

What are you gonna use to keep the food suspended in the bottles?

I do something simular with my rotifers and feeding RGcomplete automatically through the fridge to the rotifer container.

[Leon1972]

Reef nutrition already keeps itself well suspended with their own methods from what ive read according to other diy'ers. Im going to push it a bit though and try to get mysis shrimp through the system.most of, if not all, Reef nutrition are live products. Like you have to feed their copepods if you buy them.

[michaelkittrell]

welp I never thought of continuously circulating my tank water through the refrigerator line and dosing the line. That's a good answer to the clean out issue.

[Leon1972]

Originally Posted by michaelkittrell

welp I never thought of continuously circulating my tank water through the refrigerator line and dosing the line. That's a good answer to the clean out issue.

I agrea. I was concerned about the food rottong as well. It also super simplifies the plumbing

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

FWIW, I use a BRS 1.1 mL/min dosing pump on a timer to feed Reef Nutrition products (Arctipods and Real Oceanic Eggs) from the inside of a styrofoam ice chest (fish came in it) that sits on top of my sump. It also holds two 1 gallon plastic jugs of frozen water to keep the whole thing cool.

Cord goes in the side and an tubing outlet from the bottom sends the liquid foods into the sump which them pumps into the main tank.

Perfect for feeding when at work or on vacation.

[Leon1972]

Originally Posted by Randy Holmes-Farley

FWIW, I use a BRS 1.1 mL/min dosing pump on a timer to feed Reef Nutrition products (Arctipods and Real Oceanic Eggs) from the inside of a styrofoam ice chest (fish came in it) that sits on top of my sump. It also holds two 1 gallon plastic jugs of frozen water to keep the whole thing cool.

Cord goes in the side and an tubing outlet from the bottom sends the liquid foods into the sump which them pumps into the main tank.

Perfect for feeding when at work or on vacation.

In your opinion do you think Reef Nutritions Mysis Shrimp would fit through the lines for dosing in this fashion?
Yours is a much easier, simplified version but unfortunatley im trying to do something I can hook up on a more permanent basis and just change out food monthly. Hence the fridge. Im HOPING that I can find a Dorm fridge that will fit in the chiller compartment of the Red Sea Max I want to buy.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Not sure, but I'd guess it will plug with those mysis, which can be fairly large.

[Leon1972]

Originally Posted by Randy Holmes-Farley

Not sure, but I'd guess it will plug with those mysis, which can be fairly large.

What do you think would happen if I bought tubing with a thinner wall? Obviously it would wear out quicker but I think something larger diameter would help

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It might not fully close since the roller is designed to compress the tubing to zero opening with each pass.

[Scuba Dog]

I have been thinking about an automated fresh/frozen feeding system. Key components would be a cooler/frig, magnetic stir plateand or a recirculation system via small power head, for the purpose of keeping the food in suspension.

I havent purchased any live stock yet(coming back from a break from the hobby. Thus Im not sure what foods ill want to feed just yet.

But if I were to use small size particulate foods I would go with a metering pump and plenty of spare tubing.

For larger sized foods I would probally try a small power head and some creative pvc plumbing for a washout and recirculation line/loop just brain storming here.....Need some chemical engeniers to speek up lol even could have it controled via an orp probe lol

[shifty51008]

here is my auto feeder for rotifers




I do have a magnetic stirrer that I need to put in there though to keep the RGcomplete from settling, otherwise works great

[Bendo2527]

Any Downsides ? Any problems ? i have a old jaboe doser do you think that would work in the fridge