Fish Mate F14 Automatic Fish Feeder for Aquarium - Vacation or Daily Use with Included Clamps - Serves up to 14 Meals

Can't recommend this fish feeder enough! We bought this to ensure our fish stayed alive while we were out of town on several trips over the summer. We left for over a week once and came home to a happy and healthy fish thanks to this feeder. Each slot can fit a amount number of fish food so you can feed more than just one fish at a time. It's super easy to set up and the directions were pretty straight forwards as far as how to set up the timer. There is minimal noise when it's running, it sounds similar to a wrist watch. The quality of the build seems sturdy like it would last a long time.

Any review of this product needs to start with how it works which may not be readily apparent from the photos and description. The feeder is composed of a plastic ring divided into 14 equally sized compartments; the sections partition the food into the 14 different feedings. The timer in the middle moves one revolution in 24 hours and has spots to place 4 pegs; as these pegs near the top (12 o'clock) position, they engage with inside of the ring and over the course of about 2 hours push the ring around 1/14th of a revolution. This in turn pushes the compartment at 6 o clock over the opening and any food will fall into the water below. This is a rather simple mechanism but leads to some quirks that are the focus of this review.The first issue with this design is that the ring simply lays inside the feeder and isn't held very tightly. which means that the ring can rotate out of position easily. The design also means that if there is any food under the ring, it can lift it up and it will "miss" food; this practically means that you must put it down empty and then fill the compartments; if you need to pick the ring up for any reason you basically have to start over filling it. The documentation also states that it feeds over the course of two hours; while it might take two hours for the compartment to fully move over the hole, in practice the food gets piled up against the left wall of the compartment as it is pushed around in its path and ends up basically getting mostly dumped in at the end of the two hours. I am using Hikari micro pellets and loach wafers, and I would say if I have it set to feed at 6, most of the food will get dropped into the tank between about 7:30 and 8. It will also get pushed in, I haven't experienced where the food doesn't get dropped in, it just isn't as spread out in time as the paperwork would make it seem. Also, if you don't line the compartments up perfectly with the whole, you may get where it doesn't drop all of the food at say your 6am feeding; it will however push the remaining food in at the next set time.The other issue I have is that the times you can select are fairly inflexible; IIRC there are 6 possible feeding times; if you don't like then those are you can simply set the time on the feeder to compensate (for instance, if you don't want it to start at 6 but instead 7, set the time on the device an hour ahead). However, you cannot make the feedings closer together or spread out than what it is designed for. This isn't a huge huge issue but I would have liked more time options or one where I could set it any time I wanted.All of this being said, the feeder hasn't had problems with moisture which was my biggest fear; the pellets have stayed dry and I am not using the air tube option that the feeder has. It is fairly easy to load and to take on and off its mounting brackets, and when empty I can wipe it down to clean it. I also like that I can change what I am feeding the fish from day to day unlike other feeders; some days I include algae wafers for the snails and in others I put in some other foods that I don't give but a few times a week. I appreciate that I can load it on Sundays when I do water changes and don't have to worry about it; I do check it periodically just because that is how I am, but I really haven't needed to mess with it. I haven't had it long enough to check the battery life claim but I see no reason that it wouldn't last a long time; it is basically a wall clock mechanism and those seem to last a while.Overall I would recommend this feeder over the kind that rotate and dispense all the food; while it is a little fussy, I think that the more analog way this works is more reliable and I like the flexibility in food I can use. Overall it has been a good device and I'm glad we have it.

I know alot of people don't trust auto-feeders, and for the most part they're right. However, the Fishmate F14 is a different type of feeder.It seems most of the negative reviews revolve around condensation getting their food soggy and preventing the unit from rotating. You know what nearly all of those reviews have in common? They're not hooking an air pump up to the air line attachment (more on that later in the review)! When I first got my unit, I did not use it either and had an issue with moisture after a few days. So I hooked up an air pump and, voila, problem solved! It's there for a reason, use it.Another thing worth mentioning, do NOT put anything on top of the feeder. It seems that any weight on the top cover has a very good chance of catching the rotating wheel and causing it to hang up.This feeder is absolutely fantastic, it's head and shoulders above the "drum" style feeders. As you can see, it's fundamentally different. The feeder has a rotating wheel with 15 compartments in it. At the front of the feeder, there is a hole the size of one of the compartments so that when the food is rotated over it, the food falls into the tank.The main benefit of this style of feeder is that you can put premeasured amounts of food in the unit, as well as different types of food. I need to feed 3 times of food to my community tank (flakes, algae wafers, shrimp pellets) and this feeder allows me to do this. That wouldn't be possible with the drum style feeders. And since each portion is premeasured, there's no worry of the feeder dumping too much or not enough food into the tank.The middle is like an automatic timer for lights, it does one complete rotation in 24 hours. You put the little reg pegs at the time you wish to feed, and when the time arrives, the mechanism rotates the food wheel one space. Instead of dumping the food all at once, it is slowly dispersed over the course of an hour and a half (the wheel slowly rotates every 15 minutes or so for the feeding). I like this, it gives the fish a better opportunity to eat all the food imo.You have the option of feeding anywhere from 1 to 4 times a day, meaning the feeder can feed your fish from anywhere from 3.5 days to 14 days depending on how many times a day you have it set to feed the fish. You only have slots for the red pegs every 3 hours, so your feeding times would could be midnight, 3am, 6am, 9am, noon, 3pm, 6pm, or 9pm. This isn't an issue to me, but something worth noting. If you really want a specific time, you could offset the time of day on the feeder to correspond with your desired feeding times.There is also an air inlet on the bottom of the feeder you can hook an air pump up to. This is to help reduce moisture from entering the unit and getting your food soggy. The air flowing in the unit creates positive pressure and actually helps quite a bit. I use the air pump attachment and have had no issues with food getting wet. My feeder is just inches above the water line, and there is a decent amount of surface agitation from my air stone in the tank.Overall, I'm very pleased with this unit. I've even ordered a second one to feed my shrimp tank. With my job, I'm often away from home a week at a time, so a reliable feeder is of utmost importance to me. I've been using the Fishmate F14 for nearly 4 months now and have not had any issues.The unit is powered by one AA battery. The feeding compartments are small, and it can be difficult to get the food in the compartments when loading it. What I've found works best is to put your food on a piece of paper, and fold the paper once to create a type of "chute" so you can pinpoint where you want the food to go. Since doing that, I've had no issues getting the food exactly where I want it.Wow, that's quite a sales pitch, isn't it! I just want to make sure others know about this feeder since it appears to be the only feeder of this style. There is a similar style feeder, the Grässlin Rondomatic 400, but I can't find any place in the US that carries it, and it's more then twice the price of the Fishmate.So if you're looking for a feeder for your fish, look no further!