How beneficial is an auto feeder for daily use?

[BrettDS]

I have an apex and I'm big on automation... I figure that if I can automate something and save myself some work then I'm all for it. With the apex I'm doing ATO and AWC and my freshwater and NSW reservoirs will automatically refill with RODI water when they're empty (although I still need to manually add salt to the NSW reservoir). I am also using the apex to automatically make minor adjustments to the salinity level in the tank to keep it from drifting.

So I keep looking at the auto feeder and wonder if it can save me some additional effort. Right now I'm feeding a mix of some frozen and some pellet foods as well as nori on a clip for my tang. I'm also trying to use phytoplankton to increase my pop population, so an auto feeder can only go so far. I'd still need to manually add the nori and phyto, and I'd probably cut back on the frozen foods and feed mostly pellets with the auto feeder, but is that really a good thing? Can I provide a good balanced diet primarily relying on pellet foods?

Like I said, I'm all for automation, but I not if it will negatively impact the health of the lives I watch over.

 

[mpderksen]

I'll trade you my experience for yours. I got the Auto-Feeder for my Apex and fill it with New Life Spectrum pellets. I got it when I got my first Anthias for obvious reasons (I'm lazy but want to take care of my pets, and these guys need multiple feelings per day).
Turns out that while the effect of the DOs for AWC may have been the best thing to happen to my SPS, the feeder is by FAR the most amazing thing for my fish. I too add some nori and phyto (as well as occasional PE Mysis) during the week. That's mostly because I violated Snorvich's recommendations and have too many grazers..... However, my one-Spot FoxFace has literally doubled in width since then. She is Phat! It's hilarious to watch. My tank of 9 fish all know when it's about to go off, because the cluster under it for a good 10 minutes before feeding time.
We went on a week long cruise and the house sitter did NOTHING for the tank. Feeder, AWC, ATO, etc took care of everything. Solid money spent.
Now it's my turn to ask: how are you using the Apex to monitor and control salinity? I don't trust my Cond probe further than the cord will reach. Please explain this for me... Pictures will help. As a return for the favor, below is a pic of my AWC float setup. Since the picture, the floats were twisted UP, rather than hanging down.
View attachment 326118

 

[davocean]

If you have anthias that require multiple daily feedings they are awesome, add to that it's pretty easy to go away for the weekend w/out sweating too much.
I've use both Eheims and both work great.
Add a spot feed of mysis when I come home and all is good.

 

[BrettDS]

How beneficial is an auto feeder for daily use?

Thanks for the thoughts. Looks like there may be an auto feeder in my future

Now it's my turn to ask: how are you using the Apex to monitor and control salinity? I don't trust my Cond probe further than the cord will reach. Please explain this for me... Pictures will help.

Well, you might not like this, since it relies on the conductivity probe, but I'll tell you anyway It's actually quite simple.

I have my DOS set up to perform water changes constantly throughout the whole day. Originally it was configured to change 4000ml (a bit over a gallon) every 24 hours. I changed the DOS programming to have four periods of five hours and 50 minutes each and it will change 1000ml in each period, so I'm still changing 4000ml per day, but now I have four 10 minute periods that the DOS is not doing a water change.

I have two virtual outlets configured. One called Sal_Inc and the other called Sal_Dec. The programming for those outlets looks like this:

Sal_Inc
Set OFF
If Cond < 34.9 Then ON
If Cond < 34.5 Then OFF
If Time 00:10 to 05:59 Then OFF
If Time 06:10 to 11:59 Then OFF
If Time 12:10 to 17:59 Then OFF
If Time 18:10 to 23:59 Then OFF

Sal_Dec
Set OFF
If Cond > 35.1 Then ON
If Cond > 35.5 Then OFF
If Time 00:10 to 05:59 Then OFF
If Time 06:10 to 11:59 Then OFF
If Time 12:10 to 17:59 Then OFF
If Time 18:10 to 23:59 Then OFF

Basically, if the conductivity reading is less then 34.9 and its during one of the above mentioned 10 minute periods then Sal_Inc is on. If the conductivity reading is higher than 35.1 and its during one of those 10 minute periods than Sal_Dec is on.

I also added extra safeguards in case the probe does get out of whack, so if the conductivity reading is less then 34.5 or greater than 35.5 then the virtual outlets will stay off. If things are working properly it should never reach those values, so if it does then either the probe is off or something major happened and manual intervention is required.

In any case, if Sal_Inc is on, then the DOS will add an extra 236ml (about one cup) of salt water to the tank. This will cause the ATO to add one cup less freshwater during its next cycle and on my 75G system this will raise the salinity by about .025 PPT

If Sal_Dec is on, then the DOS will remove an extra 236ml of tank water. This will be replaced with freshwater the next time the ATO cycles and will decrease the salinity by about .025 PPT.

This is done with the following lines added at the bottom of the program for my DOS pumps:

NSW
If Outlet Sal_Inc = ON Then Sal_Inc

OSW
If Outlet Sal_Dec = ON Then Sal_Dec

In this case, Sal_Inc is a dosing profile configured to add 236ml over a 10 minute period and Sal_Dec is a dosing profile configured to remove 236ml over a 10 minute period. I probably shouldn't have given the profiles the same name as the virtual outlets, but I did.

Since it only adjusts the salinity four times a day and can only change it by .025 each time, even if the conductivity probe starts slowly drifting it will only change the salinity by a max of .1PPT per day. As part of my regular maintenance I still check my water with a refractometer once or twice a week to make sure that my conductivity probe is staying accurate.

So far I've been running this for about 3 or 4 weeks and it's worked out quite well. I haven't had any problems when I checked the water with my refractometer and its been keeping my salinity quite steady.