Aquaponics - Demand fish feeder success

I think I can safely say my fish feed themselves now.

Its been only five days since the fish first set eyes on my on demand feeder, and in the last 12 hours they have triggered it around eight or nine times.

They seem quite casual about using it now. Although The smallest of the fish in the tank just lurks near the lever, looking up at it. This little guy spends almost all his time looking at the lever, waiting for someone else to press it.



Water tests are showing no ill effects from the new feeding method, although I wouldn't expect them to. Feeding gradually all day rather than in large lumps a few times a day, should see the ammonia load maintain a nice steady level. A stable ammonia level, in my case zero ppm, should allow for the bacteria to maintain a relatively stable population. As far as I can see it should make the system a little more forgiving, and generally more stable.

Another advantage is that there should be less wasted food. With my regular method of hand feeding, I fed the fish until they stopped eating the feed. This meant that every time I fed them, a small amount would be left uneaten, to sit on the bottom. This represents no great loss because uneaten food all turns to plant food in the end anyway, but the plant food may as well go through a fish before being eaten by the plants.

My next step will probably be, to add a hopper to feed the auger. This will only need to be something like an empty soft drink bottle upside down over the PVC chute. While I'm at it, it would be a good idea to weather proof and possum proof the entire device.

All in all this experiment has turned out to be a complete success.

The cost for the motor and gearbox was around AU$20. I used a short length of flexible plastic tube to connect the gearbox shaft to the auger, which I already owned.