HansE Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 (edited) I recently acquired a lovely set of threadfins (Iriatherina werneri) from my local fish club auction and they need a little bulking up before they're ready for breeding. So, I thought to myself, they will need an auto-feeder! But, all of the community says they can be pretty jumpy, so how do we have an opening for food to fall from the auto-feeder without risking any fish escapees? That's right! We build a little plastic garage to go over the top of the feeder and block the hole! A few quick measurements, some extra twinwall polycarbonate leftover from making tank lids, and some hot glue is all you need to make your own! I assume this would work exactly the same with a Co-op brand feeder. They weren't available when I was in the market a while back, so I settled for Amazon. I'm interested to see if there's any issues with trapped humidity affecting the food in the drum and to see if there is any algae growth in there. I guess I'll have to wait and see! UPDATE: Immediately upon installation I could see the humidity clouding the inside of the poly sheeting, I drilled a fair amount of ventilation holes in there and I'm going to give it a few days and see if it clears up of not. FURTHER UPDATE: Vent holes were NOT enough. I just removed the lid pretty much. Looks to be doing good now 👍🏼 Edited May 25 by HansE 2nd project update 4 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamS Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 Nice use of polycarbonate! If your fish jump out they will hopefully bounce off and right back into the tank, great idea. Hopefully the humidity isn’t an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricksonAquatics Posted May 14 Share Posted May 14 Great idea! I always wondered about this exact problem. My only other idea was putting down a sheet of wider-ish squared mesh so that hopefully the food falls in but fish can’t get out. But this is much fancier!😂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HansE Posted May 16 Author Share Posted May 16 (edited) On 5/14/2024 at 4:41 PM, EricksonAquatics said: But this is much fancier!😂 I admit, it is a bit OVERLY-complicated 😳 Edited May 16 by HansE Streamlining, trimming the fat 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyxxl Posted May 16 Share Posted May 16 Very well done, must be an engineer. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwcarlson Posted May 16 Share Posted May 16 You could cover the hole with net that's big enough for the food to fall through, but small enough that the fish won't get through. As mentioned above, the humidity might cause an issue for the food, but you could probably avoid that a bit by only putting a small amount in. But if you're wanting to load it up for a month that might not work well. Could also vent your little box and help alleviate that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamS Posted May 17 Share Posted May 17 If your going to engineer it this far you might as well add a fan module to deal with the humidity. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyxxl Posted May 25 Share Posted May 25 True a small laptop fan would work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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