Eheim dual feeder feeds to much? What food you using?

[banditpowdercoat]

Just got the Eheim dual feeder. And I'm feeding small New Life sprectrum pellets and I think it feeds WAY to much :( Any tips?

[Stinktooth]

You could try cutting the pellets in half. I use the single eheim feeder, halfing the pellets and adjusting the sliding door worked for me.

[banditpowdercoat]

Cutting all my little 1mm pellets in half? Dont think so. I have the feeder your talking about, but it went swimming and fried the motor. The Eheim Dual feeder usues auger feed mechanism and seems to feed X amount per rotation., No adjusting that I can see :(

[gregzz4]

Dan, you could try putting a piece of tape over the door, so the hole is half the size

I plan on buying one of these soon, and have read much online about this complaint, but haven't yet tried it out

I've also read that the door is easy to bump, so watch it when you're playing with it as you can easily overfeed

[Rogue951]

Do you have an overflow? I find when feeding small pellets they just sit on the surface and eventually go down the drain. Which is why I never bothered with an auto feeder.
I usually soak them in a cup then use a baster to put them under water.
That being said... my tank is a 40 breeder so it doesn't take long to get to the overflow.

[allie_san]

They do sell .5 mm pellets. ;)
How much is spitting out each time? I was thinking of getting one of these..

For now, when I'm feeding by hand I figured out that if you throw them with a little force at the surface, they start sinking immediately. No soaking required. Took me a few months to figure that out.

[banditpowdercoat]

The Pellets I use are sinking. And the feeder feeds enough for a feeding. But it's BAM All at once and theres like 150 pellets all racing for the tank bottom. No time for fish to even know, Hey, it's feeding time.... If it could drop 5-10 pellets at a time, that would be sweet. Do that over 15 min. every 15 sec would be awesome.

[mike31154]

I've had the Eheim dual feeder for some years & yes, it's a bit of a conumdrum with respect to feed amounts between pellets, flakes & other types of food. I find it doesn't feed larger flakes very well and as you've experienced, tends to dump a good load of pellets per feeding if that's all that's in the hopper.

While the dual chamber design is a great idea & lends itself to using each chamber for a different type of food, I've found that it's best to mix flakes & pellets together in the same chamber. I used to use pellets in one chamber & flakes, dried shrimp in the other when I first got it, but had the same experience as you with too many pellets dropping per feeding. Now I fill each chamber with a spoonful of flakes first (poke the large ones down between the auger screws with a toothpick), then a few pellets, another layer of flakes & so on 'til it's about full. What ends up happing over the time period it takes to empty the chamber, is the pellets tend to migrate to the bottom of the chamber past the flakes & you'll still get a bunch of them hitting the water at that time. However, if you refill the chamber the same way before it gets too empty, this effect is minimized.

I've also made an HOS acrylic mount for my feeder which holds it on the side of the tank & at a slight tilt to help the 'large' flakes come out. The mount features a rectangular extension that goes below the water line allowing flakes & other food that may float into an overflow to soak & sink minimizing that issue. I've posted photos of the rig on the odd thread, if you'd like some pics lmk & I'll put some up here as well.

[mike31154]

Do you have an overflow? I find when feeding small pellets they just sit on the surface and eventually go down the drain. Which is why I never bothered with an auto feeder.
I usually soak them in a cup then use a baster to put them under water.
That being said... my tank is a 40 breeder so it doesn't take long to get to the overflow.

All you need is a feeding ring, available for a few $$s at most any LFS, or diy one, not that difficult.

[gregzz4]

If it could drop 5-10 pellets at a time, that would be sweet.
Maybe this thing would work for you ... fish mate f14 (http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&biw=1272&bih=899&sclient=psy-ab&q=fish+mate+f14&oq=fish+mate+f14&gs_l=hp.12..0l4.2265.2265.0.3750.1.1.0.0.0.0.156.1 56.0j1.1.0...0.0...1c..9.psy-ab.1Sga43n3_Qk&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.45512109,d.cGE&fp=9b3fa97c6ef15052)

You decide how much to put in each compartment, instead of it rolling past a hopper door

[banditpowdercoat]

Well, In my DIY nature and love of electronics, I decided to mod my new Dual feeder LOL. Simple I thought, It feeds good amount per cycle, just feeds too darn quick. So, slow the motors down to lengthen the cycle time. It runs till it hits limit switch inside. Soldered a resistor onto motor. Theory is perfectly good. Lower V to motor, slower motor speed, longer feed time. Well, The drive electronics did not like the higher resistance on motor circuit. Fried the motor driver.
Brand new Eheim feeder busted.... Hmmm
Ohh look, a 6v Wall Wart. Wire both motors in series, 6v wall wart slows them down 1/2 speed. Resistor inline, slower yet. Hmm, Apex.. Feed modes, Wall Wart...... Pluged into Apex, a little programming to cycle the outlet for 3 sec at a time. Feeds just a little bit. pauses, feeds some more.... Bandit Likes!!!

So wasted the fancy eheim electronics, just using the body and motors. It much better now for me anyways. I like this feeder as it's large hopper design allows a better food amount for the 3 weeks I am gone. Expensive way to integrate a feeder to the Apex, But will work well I think

[asylumdown]

I just threw out this exact auto-feeder today for the same reason you're talking about. Apparently it really doesn't perform very well with small sized pellets. I also used to use the single chamber eheim, but switched to the dual chamber because I knocked three (yes, three) of the single chamber ones in to my aquarium over the course of a year, frying all of them. I thought the dual chamber was built in a way that would make it less likely to go swimming at a moment's notice.

However, from what I gather now, the auger design really falls apart with the small pellets. A single turn of the auger seems to dump enough food for 40 fish if you're using the small pellets, and in my case, they were gumming up the gear so that one of the two chambers wouldn't complete a full revolution and the little door flap would stay propped open.

If you're feeding small pellets I still think the best feeder available is the single chamber eheim, it's the only one that I've worked with that doesn't dump so much in your tank turns in to an algae soup. I bought two of them yesterday so that I will have a backup when I inevitably knock the one I'm using now in to the tank.

[Lampshade]

I must say, i bought an really cheap ($3 shipped) feeder off of ebay. It's been going everyday for 2 years, 3 feedings a day with 10ish pellets. Still original batteries, I love this thing. I bought 2 just in case it was crap. I gave the second away after a year and it's also had no issues. This is the one here (http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Automatic-Auto-Aquarium-Tank-Flake-Pellet-Fish-Food-Feeder-Feeding-Timer-/181092326222?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item2a29f19b4e#ht_3881wt_1141), looks like the price is a bit higher, but it is the model i got.