Rick Mathew
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Because I travel frequently I needed a way to feed my tank without burdening my friends (mostly my wife) with the task of feeding every day. I have an automatic dry food feeder that works well but I wanted to keep the food diet as varied as possible….
So I decided to take on the project of a DIY frozen food feeder…or at least a very cold food feeder. I have read several articles and posts about this idea and thought I would give it a try. I already had a small Haier frig that I purchased to stop violating the family frig with “that nasty fish food”…most of us have been there! I also had an Aquabreed 1000 that was just sitting gathering dust from a failed attempt to raise my own Brine Shrimp…much easier for me to buy them in “popsicle” cubes than to keep up with hatching, feeding, harvesting etc..
With that being said I made the commitment to purchase the Apex DOS as my delivery tool. I liked the fact that it was programmable and would run in reverse to clean out the lines to prevent food for sitting in the lines to rot. With this purchase and a few other odds and ends all I needed to do was go for it!
First I cut the top off of the Aquabread 1000
Next I mounted it in the frig. and attached an airline and float switch. The air stirs up the food just before feeding so as to provide a more even delivery of the food. The float switch is programmed through the Apex Controller to shut off the DOS just in case the DOS were to somehow over fill in the back flush cycle.
I installed a wireless Temperature Monitor to be sure the temperature stays between 32-35 F
I passed the feed line through the frig. direct to the DOS then up to the tank.
After a bit of experimenting with the volume necessary to fill and purge the line (50mL in my case) and finding the correct volume to feed the appropriate amount of food (40mL in my case), I was ready to feed. After a few feeding events I found that there were occasions where the food would settle to the bottom and even with the air stir it would clog the line at the bottom of the feeder. I resolved this by setting the DOS to do a quick back feed (reverse from the tank at 125mL/Min) of 20mL…worked like a charm! No clogging since. So here is how the feed cycle goes.
1) Air comes on 2 min before feed cycle starts
2) Reverse (from the tank) 20mL at 125mL/Min
3) Feed to the tank from the feeder 90mL at 25mL/min
4) Reverse (from the tank) 70mL at 25mL/min
5) Air turns off 1 min after last reverse purge.
It has been operating now for about 5 weeks and has performed flawlessly. Along with the automatic dry food feeder this allows me to be away for several days with only having my “fish sitter” check in every other day or so to hand feed the Marine Betta and put some Algae strips in the feeder.
One of the questions I had was would I get an ammonia build up using the feeder for an extended period of time (1 week). I suspend the food in salt water which has a typical freezing point around 28F. This allow me to keep the food temperature between 32-35F with no freezing problems. After one week of feeding 40mL/day there was no change in the ammonia level of the tank (150gal) as measured by my SENEYE monitor.
Well that about it. With a day’s worth of work and some cash my reef keeping labors have been reduced, giving me more time to enjoy my tank and less worry when I am away.
Here is a video of the fish enjoying the fruits of my labor.
So I decided to take on the project of a DIY frozen food feeder…or at least a very cold food feeder. I have read several articles and posts about this idea and thought I would give it a try. I already had a small Haier frig that I purchased to stop violating the family frig with “that nasty fish food”…most of us have been there! I also had an Aquabreed 1000 that was just sitting gathering dust from a failed attempt to raise my own Brine Shrimp…much easier for me to buy them in “popsicle” cubes than to keep up with hatching, feeding, harvesting etc..
With that being said I made the commitment to purchase the Apex DOS as my delivery tool. I liked the fact that it was programmable and would run in reverse to clean out the lines to prevent food for sitting in the lines to rot. With this purchase and a few other odds and ends all I needed to do was go for it!
First I cut the top off of the Aquabread 1000
Next I mounted it in the frig. and attached an airline and float switch. The air stirs up the food just before feeding so as to provide a more even delivery of the food. The float switch is programmed through the Apex Controller to shut off the DOS just in case the DOS were to somehow over fill in the back flush cycle.
I installed a wireless Temperature Monitor to be sure the temperature stays between 32-35 F
I passed the feed line through the frig. direct to the DOS then up to the tank.
After a bit of experimenting with the volume necessary to fill and purge the line (50mL in my case) and finding the correct volume to feed the appropriate amount of food (40mL in my case), I was ready to feed. After a few feeding events I found that there were occasions where the food would settle to the bottom and even with the air stir it would clog the line at the bottom of the feeder. I resolved this by setting the DOS to do a quick back feed (reverse from the tank at 125mL/Min) of 20mL…worked like a charm! No clogging since. So here is how the feed cycle goes.
1) Air comes on 2 min before feed cycle starts
2) Reverse (from the tank) 20mL at 125mL/Min
3) Feed to the tank from the feeder 90mL at 25mL/min
4) Reverse (from the tank) 70mL at 25mL/min
5) Air turns off 1 min after last reverse purge.
It has been operating now for about 5 weeks and has performed flawlessly. Along with the automatic dry food feeder this allows me to be away for several days with only having my “fish sitter” check in every other day or so to hand feed the Marine Betta and put some Algae strips in the feeder.
One of the questions I had was would I get an ammonia build up using the feeder for an extended period of time (1 week). I suspend the food in salt water which has a typical freezing point around 28F. This allow me to keep the food temperature between 32-35F with no freezing problems. After one week of feeding 40mL/day there was no change in the ammonia level of the tank (150gal) as measured by my SENEYE monitor.
Well that about it. With a day’s worth of work and some cash my reef keeping labors have been reduced, giving me more time to enjoy my tank and less worry when I am away.
Here is a video of the fish enjoying the fruits of my labor.
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....) I think it was less than a one day project and at this point it seems well worth the time...will keep you updated as ti its performance and any adjustments that need to be made...thanks again
