Automated fish feeder

dgwkpe · Jan 5, 2015

I'm setting up 265 gallon in wall tank. I want the ability to feed live fish to my tank with the push of a button or something. I know that sounds odd, but my plan is to have a 40 gallon tank in the back room with sw mollies for the occasional feeding of my predators. Wondering if anyone knows of a way to pump or somehow get a few mollies into my main display tank. I want to be in front of the main tank when they go in to watch the action. The sump and molly tank will not be accessible from the front of my main tank, they will be hidden behind the wall. Any thoughts on how to achieve this? I know mollies aren't the most nutritious, but more of an occassional treat. I would also like to put some frozen food in this "feeder", then walk to the front of my tank and flip a switch or whatever to get the food into the tank.

Yami Balayo · Jan 5, 2015

IMO feeding live feed to predator fish is not good practice ... the feeder fish will bring parasites that will kill your expensive predator fish. talk about exacting vengeance after the little guy died in the belly of the beast

i read somewhere though that if the feeder fish is eaten very quickly, then there is little time for the parasites (ich, etc.) to get into the water and infect the predator fish. the parasites will most likely die in the belly of the predator fish, except the parasites that live in the gut of the feeder fish.

dgwkpe · Jan 5, 2015

My plan was to have a 30 gallon tank that is plumbed into my main DT and Sump. That tank will have mollies that can breed and be in the same water parameters as the DT. I don't plan on getting feeder fish from the pet store and dumping them into the tank. The hope is to breed them and hopefully keep them disease free. I also wanted to be able to drop my chopped up food/frozed food/silversides into this "automated feeder" and again, go to the front of my DT and flip the switch. So this would be used for both live fish and frozed foods.

Skydvr · Jan 8, 2015

If you are converting the mollies to saltwater yourself, I think that would mitigate the risk of parasites and other issues. They won't survive the transition. Medicating before or after probably isn't even necessary. Just keep the breeding tank conditions good and you should be fine. One male and three females and you'll have a couple hundred mollies in two month's time. Trust me, they breed like crazy.

Since the food items are not going to be in there long and you are loading it immediately before feeding, you could just have a simple bowl with a hinge on one side and electric actuator. Either tip the back up, or drop the front down.