Fish Mate 14-feed Automatic Aquarium Fish Feeder (F14) - Timer Controlled for Precise Reliable Feeding, Vacation or Daily Use with Included Clamps, Serves Up to 14 Meals

This automatic feeder works great for vacations or just daily feeding. I know some reviews have mentioned moisture building up. Because I read those reviews we do not use the cover and we have had no problem with moisture. I would imagine moisture buildup in the feeder is also a function of how warm your water is in your fish tank. We do not heat our tank water so maybe that is another reason we do not have a moisture problem. If I had to critique it, I wish there were more than 14 individual feedings, I would definitely purchase one that fed a little bit more than 14 times. Setting the feeder up was fairly intuitive. We went on a vacation that was over a month long and the battery had no problem (we did have to have a neighbor come and replenished the food though).

First off one caveat wasn't mentioned by anyone yet: The food gets dispensed very slowly for over an hour due to the way the mechanism works (more about it below). In certain cases of fish combinations this causes problems where some fish get more food while others none and you should really know how your fish function in the community tank before getting this type of feeder.In my case I have a Black Moor (well not black anymore since it went all red earlier this year being a mass-market genetic cull from Petco) which is known to have a poor vision and is always behind the other two fancy goldfish in finding the food. Thus normally when I feed them I make sure to drop more pellets then the other fish can catch as the pellets sinks to the bottom thus making sure that Black Moor gets a chance. This works. However the feeder only dispenses a few pellets at a time due to it's design.This feeder is very unique from EVERY OTHER feeder I have seen on the market today in a way that it does NOT use a digital clock and electronic circuitry with servo motor to drive some kind of a drum. This feeder uses a very basic quartz clock mechanism similar to one found in every one-AA-battery powered wall clock except this one is a 24h cycle (not the usual 12h). Effectively as the clock rotates one of the four removable little red notches (you see in the product photo) catches onto one of the 15 slots (14 available for food and one is always empty) and starts to slowwwwwwly drag the food carousel around. As the next pre-loaded slot moves over the opening the food starts falling down into the fish tank. Depending on the granularity and "flowability" of the food it will be dispensed over one and a half hour time (24h / 15 = 1.6h).This simplicity of the mechanism has it's cons and pros:Cons:- Very slow dispensing of certain foods especially small qualities (e.g a bit of small granulated pellets) so if you have many fish some may get it all and overeat while others get none- If any of the foods or has tiny particles (dust from dried shrimp or flakes) and gets sticky the feeder with clog and stall. The driving force of the clock mechanism seems pretty limited- The device is more sensitive to humidity. See above point.- You are limited to 14 days at 1 meal per day MAX load capacity- Loading food needs practice as to fit it into each of the 14 compartment and not to spill it onto the rotating clockPROS:- Simplicity of mechanics and electronics makes it beautiful design and easy to program- Allows you to think in terms of means and not foods. You can mix and match foods that goes into each meal compartment and/or alternate foods each meal. Basically if it fits it feeds.- Can take almost any kinds of foods. See point above and also the CONS section.- There are very little limitation on how large each food item can be. I can fit massive dried shrimp in it (especially if I don;t close the top lid. Something that would never fit into a drum feeder.- Runs on one AA battery what looks like forever! I had a Petco digital timer drum feeder drain fresh brand new AA in under two weeks. This thing keeps going and going.Bonus thought:- This one looks like it works best in cold-water tanks where humidity is less of an issue.- Two to mount it high enough where it;s out of the reach of evaporation while the food still drops into the water. I have mine on top of the lights about 10 inches above water level.- AMA in the comments and I will try to help you out

The Fish Mate F14 Aquarium Fish Feeder is a fantastic feeder to use when you're away from your fishtank for more than a week at a time. The feeder works very well to dispense pellets, dried bloodworms, and dried brine shrimp to my betta and African dwarf frog. To use, simply set the time on the unit, put in a peg (or multiple pegs if you plan on feeding more than one time a day) at the time you want the food to drop, then let the unit do its thing. The clock works like a kitchen timer - the peg rotates as the minutes tick away, and once it gets the designated feeding time, the peg helps move the large circular feeding tray to drop the food in the water. This unit doesn't work all that well with flake food, although it is advertised as being able to dispense it. This wasn't a huge issue for me as I can use betta pellets to feed my fish, but it would be nice if it worked better for the flake food for the guppies - luckily those greedy guys like betta pellets also. I've been using the unit since I originally ordered it in May - so far, it's run about 2 months on a single battery and it's worked flawlessly. We've refilled the unit every two weeks, and so far everyone is alive and well in the tank. I plan on changing out the battery before we go on vacation to make sure that the battery doesn't run out once we're gone. This feeder has worked so well that I just ordered a second unit for our other tank. One thing to note is that if you plan on feeding your fish twice a day that there's only enough slots for a weeks worth of food. If you feed once a day, this can hold two weeks of food. Overall, this is a really handy feeder to have and it will guarantee your fish will be fed the correct amount for the days that you're gone.