Fish Mate 14-feed Automatic Aquarium Fish Feeder (F14) - Quartz Timer Controlled for Precise Reliable Feeding with Ease, Serves Up to 14 Meals

This fish feeder works perfectly for my tank and my fish. I use a combination of dried, flake and tablet food, and this feeder does its job very well. I tend to use it for long weekends away, but last month we went away for 10 days during warm weather and it didn't clog or malfunction in any way. I don't think the fish even noticed we'd gone! The mechanism is very simple, based on a slowly rotating clock. You set the clock to the current time then put the pegs next to the appropriate hour, and as the chosen time comes around the pegs make contact with tabs on the outer food wheel and rotate it. The open bottom of the compartment gradually overlaps the hole in the base, and the food drops through. The food wheel lifts right out for easy cleaning, but I haven't had to clean mine at all. You should turn the mechanism on before loading the food, because the power switch is next to the battery under a protective cover on the underside of the unit. A few points: - If you don't have a tank with an open flat top, you can put it inside the hood, but you will probably need to attach an airline to stop the flake food from clumping - it says this in the instructions, which are very clear. - Don't use directly over the site of an airstone or filter - it will moisten the food and lead to clumping. Leaving the lid of the feeder open may also help with condensation. - As with any 'automated' item, test it for a week before you go - to save stressing out or starving your pets. - If you set it to feed at 6pm, the food won't necessarily drop in at 6pm. It's a slow gradual rotation, so if you put a large tablet in the compartment and the holes start to line up at 6pm, the tablet will not drop in until the hole is big enough - could be an hour later! Dimensions: The flat edge at the back is about 12cm, from front to back 14cm, and it's about 4.5cm high. Each food compartment has internal dimensions of 1.7cm long and approx. 1.6cm wide (1.3cm inner edge, 2cm outer edge), and is about 1.7cm high.

I love this thing so much! It has made going on holiday so much easier. We have used this for long and short holidays and as long as we had a fresh battery we never had a single issue. It has reliably fed our fish and worked as we hoped. I give it 4 stars though, because you do need to have a hole in the hood of your tank to feed with this machine. I also found, that the best way to avoid condensation, effecting the food, was to set the machine on its own box, on the hood of our tank above the hole. In doing that we found the food was dry and had no issues. But if you forget to do this, or put it straight on the hood, the food will get damp and probably clump and not move. If it had something to hold it, it would be nice, but as the box has worked for us, I would still highly recommend this feeder.

Worked perfectly for a 1-week holiday. Instructions were clear and it was easy to set up after reading the leaflet. It essentially runs on a clock mechanism and all other moving parts are physical/mechanical, so there's very little to go wrong as long as you're using suitable food and guard against condensation. I did leave the lid open to avoid any risk of condensation, which I think helped. My tank is 250L with around 50 small fishes and the food compartments are amply sized to accommodate their usual food and feeding schedule, except for the plec pellets which I swapped for algae wafers broken in half. I wouldn't hesitate to use it again next time we go away as it's so convenient.

total crap. the food got damp as the unit doesnt seal just a lid that flops down. as a result the tray couldnt turn resulting in my fish going without food for the entire time i was away. flushing dead fish down the toilet is not a nice feeling. DO NOT buy this item is my advice.

A few months after getting some tropical fish I decided to take a 3-week holiday to Australia however could not bring myself to ask friends to feed the fish twice a day whilst I was away. I must of spend hours looking from the right automatic fish feeder until I found this one. The biggest problems I had with most fish feeders was in the consistency in the amount of food dispensed. I am glad to say this is not a problem with the fish mate 14 as it has 14 individual compartments which can each be filled with the desired amount of food. It uses a simple yet effective rotating clock mechanism to time when the feeds are delivered, it comes with four pegs which you can place in the 3-hour gap points (so 3am, 6 am and 9am etc.) I chose to only use two pegs at 9am and 9pm. The mechanism is powered 1 x AA battery and workers smoothly and slightly. As it approaches the desired time it slowly pushes the next compartment over the hole which drops into the tank. As I have a closed fish tank I found that using flake food can sometimes clog due to the condensation however, this was easily resolved by using petals and placing the feeder on top of the box it came in above the tank feeding door. I’m sure this won’t be a problem for those who have open top fish tanks but if not it’s an easy fix. Overall I have been very impressed with this product and use it every time I need to go away for a few days. I highly recommend this product from anybody who has a need for an automatic fish feeder

It has 14 compartments which you can "load" with different food types and can feed up to 3 times per day. Good in theory.... The carousel rotates one compartment over a 1 hour period but only when the peg attached to the 24hr timer actuates it. So you could feed one compartment per day for 14 days or 4 compartments per day for 3 days (with two spare) The hole the food drops through obviously needs to be over open water, so I need to keep my cover glass open which a) Invalidates my hood warranty due to moisture exposure b) allows my Reed Fish to escape! So a bit of adaption was necessary I bought a sheet of 5mm perspex cut to 550mm x 100mm I made a cut out in one edge to allow to food to pass through and then glued the autofeeder to the perspex sheet by the battery compartment lid. This allows the autofeeder to be removed easily as the battery compartment lid lifts on/off. When I need to use the feeder I open one of the cover glasses 100mm, slide the perspex in and close the glass so it butts up to the perspex, leaving no gaps. I loaded each compartment with a mixture of crumbled freeze dried Tubifex worm, tropical fish worm pellets, catfish pellets, cichlid pellets and algae wafers. I still think the cichlids will probably eat everything as the addition rate is incredibly slow. However, at least they might not resort to eating their tank mates... Was it worth the hassle? Well, it does work. For most small aquariums this would be a good purchase. it's not the most sturdy piece of kit on the market but it does allow a mixed feeding regime and if you're careful it will last. For an 8 foot tank filled with predators then no, not a long term option. It did keep mine going for 3 days.

Positives: I wanted a fish feeder that is simple in operation (less to go wrong) and that will just work. I'm amazed how good this is, especially for the price. It uses a single AA battery, I'm using a 1.2V rechargeable and it works great. At the centre is a basic clock mechanism that turns a rotating tray one notch/feed, at the time(s) you set. These are the only moving parts. It comes with 4 pegs to set up to 4 feeds per day, the tray holds up to 16 feeds. Its very easy to clean, lift the tray out and there is a very flat surface thats easy to wipe. It mounts using 2 screw on clamps that are very sturdy and will fit a pretty wide tank edge. My tank has a plastic edge cover, it fits over it easily. The main body slots onto the clamps and is easily removed and refitted. Its a good design, nothing to go wrong. I set 2 feed times, one of crunched up flake for the swimming fish during the day when the light is on. Another feed at night with heavier granular food for the bottom feeders so the swimming fish dont eat their food. I have plenty of fat female guppies so this is handy. Using 2 feeds per day, I can go away for 8 days :) For more feeds, you can fit 2 of these to a tank, they are so cheap! Feeding is a slow rotation so all the food doesnt drop at once. This is great as I have fast moving water at the surface, so the fish get chance to eat all the food before it can rotate round the tank into the water filter. Its been running a week now flawlessly. Negatives: Time can only be altered by the 1/2 hour. The tray doesnt quite rotate the whole of a food section, a very small bit is left which drops on the next feed before the new feed rotates into place. Not a big problem and may not happen on everyones feeder. Update 31/08/17 I didnt realise I have had this for 5 years because it still works as new! One battery lasts more than a year, I put a new rechargeable in as a precaution. Only one thing has gone wrong, I broke how it mounts on the plastic pegs. Instead I put a thin length of wood across one end of the tank, it rests on that and still works perfectly.

This works as it's supposed to, however flake food does clump up into solid lumps which may or may not fall into the tank. It apparently has support for connecting to an airline to prevent this but i haven't looked into it. I imagine this works best with pellet food. If you look on the back, this product is essentially a clock mechanism from a wall clock, but instead of turning the hour/minute hand, it turns a carousel of food compartments. Little plastic pegs which you can place at certain points advance the carousel as they tick past. There's a hole in the front which food falls out from when the carousel advances. So it's a very simple mechanism, and unlikely to go wrong, aside from the battery being low/flat.

Ottimo prodotto, semplice, fa il suo dovere alla perfezione. Se siete indecisi tra una mangiatoia a tamburo o questa, prendete questa senza pensarci due volte... PRO Scegliete voi la dose esatta di cibo da inserire negli scomparti, eroga 14 pasti totali, max 4 pasti al giorno, è predisposta per installare il tubo dell'areatore ed evitare così che il cibo diventi umido. MIGLIORABILE L'installazione sulla vasca è semplice ma a mio avviso un po' "a qualche modo"; i morsetti, a meno che non si mette un pezzo di cartone o gommapiuma per aumentare la presa sul vetro (che comunque avviene), sono di gran lunga migliorabili. Anche il sistema di posizionamento della stessa mangiatoia sui morsetti è altrettanto migliorabile... Sta in posizione ma sembra sia li lì per sbilanciarsi dato che sporge piu di 10cm dal bordo, ed è solo appoggiata a questi morsetti, nessun incastro od aggancio. Comunque obiettivamente fa il suo dovere. CONTRO Il manuale non è in italiano. È corredato di immagini ma se una persona non capisce una delle lingue disponibili (anericano, tedesco,francese, spagnolo o olandese), potrebbe comunque faticare a capire come impostare la mangiatoia. Per me comunque è un ottimo acquisto e lo consiglio!

It's closer to 4.5 stars. I've used the drum autofeeders in the past and hated them because it's so hard to guess the opening for the right amount of food to dispense, and the moisture makes short, moldy work of flake food. I have 4 tanks, I bought one to try out: it was a bit frustrating at first because the tray moves/lifts off so easily that it took me 3 (irritating) tries to get the food in and the feeder situated on the aquarium. I learned it's very helpful to stick a fat pen (sharpie, etc) into the opening to keep it from spinning. The aquarium I tested it out on is 55 gal, and that has the LED light inserts - I just removed one of the lights, pulled back the plastic cover that protects the light, and set the feeder so that the opening was over the exposed water. It was too close to the water for the flake food, and I was not interested in hooking up an air pump, so I elevated it by putting some cut wood paneling pieces under it to raise it about 4". That helped tremendously, but sometimes the flakes still got too moist and wouldn't dispense because it stuck to the sidewalls of the tray. So rather than raise it anymore, I just opened the cover - viola! That did it. I have several different kinds of fish, so in addition to flakes, there are shrimp pellets, freeze-dried bloodworms, and algae tablets (broken into pieces. What makes this great is that it dispenses exactly the amounts of the different foods rather than random mixture from the drum-style feeders and this is what sold me. I have ordered 3 more for my other tanks - all of which I can make work in a very similar fashion. Do test it out before you go on vacation - make sure you've worked any of the bugs out and that you're confident it will work while you're gone. I was ready to get rid of my tanks because it was so stressful trying to arrange someone to come over to feed them while I was out of town, but now this has removed the stress and I'm glad that I can keep my fish tanks:) The cons are the irritation at how easily it is to mess up the food you so carefully distribute into each cell, just by a little bump (thus having to do it all over again), and the price - I don't see how in the world this thing should cost almost $25 - that's highway robbery for such a simple gadget (no LCD display or anything - just a simple clock mechanism and all plastic parts). But I'm obviously willing to pay it because it's a simple solution that works really well. *Update, I'll bump it up to 4.75 stars (still the price factor is ridiculous), but I did order the other 3 and have them all on my tanks. They work so well, I use them as everyday feeders (they were originally intended as vacation feeders only). Using them creates less wasted food because it dispenses a little at a time over an hour, so the fish have time to get it all rather than having some of it get sucked up in the filter. I have it feed them 2x a day - so once a week I fill all the feeders (it's helpful to remove the feeder, set it on a table, stick a fat pen (or something comparable) into the opening to stop the wheel from spinning, and use a small funnel when adding food to the chambers.)

Necesitaba un comedero que vertiera cantidades pequeñas, y este era el único que encontré. Lo he probado durante 2 semanas y no se me ha muerto ningún pez. Es sencillo y puedes poner la cantidad y variedad de comida que quieras para 14 dosis. Para mi es perfecto, lo recomiendo. Ahora voy a intentar decir puntos negativos. El mecanismo de giro es el de un reloj y si estás atento y la sala en silencio se escucha el tic-tac, aunque en teoría no estás presente, estás de viaje... Es un poco voluminoso, estéticamente queda mal, aunque estás de viaje... Es bastante más caro que los demás, pero esto lo conoces de antemano. Pero insisto, para mi es perfecto.

Product works very well. Have been using it for more than a year, whenever everybody in family is travelling out. Useful product for Aquarium hobbyists. A bit expensive, but serves purpose very well. Flat type is suitable for aquariums with lid.

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