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Automatic Frozen Food Feeder (1 Viewer)

Kyle T.

Kyle T.

Big Footed Ginger!
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I'm am toying around with the idea of making an automatic feeder for frozen foods like mysis, ova, enriched brine, chopped up shrimp, clam, mussel, etc. Does anyone have any ideas on how to build one?

I have been thinking about putting a mini fridge next to the tank with some dosing pumps. The food will be thawed in a container of tank water, and the dosing pumps will "dose" the food into the return line from the sump and up into the tank based off of a timer. I want to see if anyone has any better ideas.
 
i have a mini fridge drilled for aquarium use.... it really is not hard to design at all...

theres a thread on reef central in the nps forum about making this.... its where i stole all my ideas
 
refrigerator.jpg
 
Maybe put an air pump and there as well to keep the food tumbling?
 
cubetankguy said:
refrigerator.jpg
Click to expand...

Don't believe him guys. It is his secret Bloody Mary mix machine...:laugh:

But seriously now.
I can see the food gets dosed with the dosing pump into the PVC pipe.
I assume on the left in the sump is your return pump which pumps water into the PVC pipe.
But how does it go to the tank? What am I missing here

Read and Win Question 11: Believe it or not but two of our actual forum sponsors already confirmed their spot as vendor for the FALL Expo/Swap 2013. Who are those sponsors? HINT: You will need to look at 2 places and compare.
 
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cubetankguy said:
yes food goes from pumps to pvc the pvc then connects with the return then into display
Click to expand...

Feel free to call me stupid but I still don't get it.

The PVC pipe is connected with tubing to the outlet of your return pump which means it pumps water into the pipe. But how does it get out of the PVC pipe to the tank?
 
I've done this with a DIY oyster feast. It won't be frozen, just refrigerated so A) it can be pumped with a dosing pump, B) while won't stay good as long as frozen should last 5-7 days refridgerated.

The secret is to add sodium alginate to keep it just thick enough that the food will stay supended and not settle to the bottom.

Now I didn't ever get as far as using a dosing pump, I just manually feed but there is no reason why it won't work.

Sodium alginate is commonly used by chefs ( ask Ray ) to thicken. I got mine from Amazon which actually came from molecularrecipes.com. This is likely what reefnutrition and others use to keep it mixed/suspended.
 
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MAXreefer said:
Feel free to call me stupid but I still don't get it.

The PVC pipe is connected with tubing to the outlet of your return pump which means it pumps water into the pipe. But how does it get out of the PVC pipe to the tank?
Click to expand...

I agree, how does the food get from the fridge to the tank, the pump is pumping out of the return, and from the picture it doesnt look like its in a loop toward the tank, doesnt the pump just push the water and food mix into the end and not to the tank?
 
MAXreefer said:
Feel free to call me stupid but I still don't get it.

The PVC pipe is connected with tubing to the outlet of your return pump which means it pumps water into the pipe. But how does it get out of the PVC pipe to the tank?
Click to expand...

There is a hole on the right side of the fridge as well. ;)
 
Thanks for the picture! Is yours actually running to refridgerate? I may have to see if I can swing by your place and look at that in person. :)
 
its off line right now... 1 tank at a time... but you are more than welcome to check it out...

and as dg said you have to be dosing quite a bit of food so it doesnt spoil... this was on a dedicated nps system..

and i only ran my skimmer for 12 hrs a day...
 
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