Fish Mate P7000 Automatic Pond Fish Feeder, 7 Litre Capacity

This product works great, once you figure out a couple of things first. It is pretty easy to put together, and it seems like a good design. You need to follow the directions to program it. First you set the clock, then you go through and set up to three feedings per day, with a specific amount of food for each feeding. You should go through the calibration part of the process to measure how much food is dispensed at a level 10, then adjust up or down for your specific number of fish and size of pond. We have three Koi and have adjusted down from our original estimates because we were finding a lot of uneaten food in the pond. The hardest part for us was positioning the feeder where it could dispense in the pond, and be safe from the raccoons and other animals that sneak into our backyard from the woods behind our fence. Thankfully several folks have shared their solutions on Amazon, and I say "thank you" for sharing your ideas. We liked the bucket idea to protect the feeder from sun, rain, and pests. We found that our cat litter buckets worked perfectly, and it has a handle to hang it by. We just happened to have a pole from an unused bug-zapper that has worked well for us so far. We like this setup so well we may use this full time instead of just when we go on vacation. I would like to find a way to have more flexibility in positioning it over the pond, but that may take a little more work. After using this a while we have discovered that ours isn't lasting quite a week on only 1 feeding per day on the lowest setting. Not sure why, but it may be the raccoons. I have seen them sticking their little paws up the spout I assume to pull out more fish food. We were gone a week and it was empty when we returned. Guess we will need to put it out of reach of the raccoons or find a mesh to put over the spout that will keep their paws out. We still like it, but needs more work.

I bought this product about 3 months ago. I too, had trouble with the programming. When I finally got the right person on the phone, the programming was perfect. The problem was: the manual was different from the verbal instructions I received on the phone. Now that that is taken care of, I was reading reviews that mentioned that the unit did not work well in high humidity or rainy days. The food would clog up and the company said it was not waterproof. So I put my talented husband to the task to fix this problem before we even installed it permanently. He used materials he had at home and created a beautiful cover for the unit. Within one week of installing the unit and cover, we had about 4 days of heavy rain with a lot of wind. Nothing clogged up and the unit worked perfectly. Since that time, we have had several high humidity days and also more rainy days. We live in Texas and it can be very hot and dry for several days. No matter what the weather, this unit with the "weatherproof" cover has worked perfectly. I put enough pellets in the feeder for 1 month (this last time for 2 months), and I have not had one single problem yet. The materials he used: A five gallon paint bucket (from any hardware store), a post that was cemented in the ground on the outside of the pond wall, a metal flat holder that previously was used to hold an old satellite dish unit to a roof, and a few screws. He put air holes in the upside down bucket as well as a cut out for the feed spout and screwed it to the holder which was screwed to the post. He then painted the entire bucket, etc. It looks beautiful and can easily be removed to add more feed.

This product did work and fed my fish for 10 days. Definitely needs to be in a waterproof container, otherwise my pond pellets started to show moisture damage and I would think the pond condensation would take out the batteries pretty easily. I think the top lid of the dispenser would need to have a rubber seal and be locking for it to be waterproof. Once I put the dispenser in a 5 gallon bucket like the other reviewers, it was fine. Used an orange 5 gallon bucket, cut a hole on the bottom side. My hole was too big, so sealed it off with duck tape. I had to remove the lid from the dispenser to get it to fit in the bucket, but the bucket had a lid that made it water tight. I have a metal grate over my pond to keep the raccoons out, just placed the bucket with my dispenser on the grate (it's level). Pretty easy to program, hardest part is figuring out how much it dispenses. You can program up to 3 feedings and change how much it dispenses with each feeding. The first one or two feedings when you first set it up - nothing comes out as it is still filling the pellets through the the feeder spout. After that, it starts dispensing. To figure out how much it would dispense, I set mine up inside at first with a bowl underneath the spout. I have four 5 - 10" Koi that eat small pellets and I guessed they would need 2 feedings a day on level 2 of the amount of food. Way too much and I would have killed them had I kept that setting. I ended up settling on 1 feeding at level 1 for the small pellets I feed my fish. Overall, it works and kept my fish alive. Don't guess at the level of food dispensed, set it up first and see how much it dispenses with your size pellets. They need to tweak the lid with a rubber seal to make it waterproof (also battery case), but putting it in a 5 gallon bucket solves that problem.

This automatic feeder worked well for my small 4' x 8' pond. I have about 20 Shubunkin goldfish in this pond and it has always been a problem finding someone to feed the fish when we are away for an extended period of time. Overall, this feeder seems to be well built and worked as advertised. It was easy to setup and to get programed for the feeding schedule I chose. I watched it for about a week before we left on vacation and it dispensed the fish food right on time with no problems. As other people have said it probably should be mounted on a board, which it is setup to do, because it is fairly light and could be blown over in wind or knocked over by pets. I set a brick on top of it and it stayed in place fine with the extra weight. Other people have said that the latches for the lid will break off over time and I agree that will probably happen because of the way they are constructed, but I don't think that is much of a problem because a weight like the brick I used will easily hold the lid on if the latches should break. Overall I am very happy with this feeder and it solved the problem of feeding our fish when we are away.

Packaged well. Easy to assemble. Directions on setup were good just a little bit complicated initially on how to program. Hopper is big takes lots of koi pellets (which feed very good thru the feed tube). Just set this up and initial automatic feeding the next day worked day worked great. Time will tell... Regular 5 gallon bucket will fit over the feeder after cutting out a slot for the feed tube. I think maybe the patio pavers coupled with screwing down the unit on wood planks (only provided 2 screw slots in the front (2 add'l screw slots in the backside of the feeder would have been even nicer) "should" work fine. With the 5 gallon bucket to keep the rain off and the unit screwed down on wood with additional paver weights on the sides.... maybe we have a shot with this thing! As this is temporary, while away, not real concerned about the looks ;-). Just needs to do its job! Bought two of these.... one for a 1,200 gallon pond and another for a 400 gallon pond.... With bucket protecting from varmits...... Worked great for about 2 weeks.... went on vacation and within two days each were visited by raccons.... nozzle was torn off of both feeders causing most all of the food spilling into the ponds..... lost 3 15 year old koi due to food dumps...... NOT recommended now.... tossed out and purchased the Hygger Automatic Pond Fish Feeder.... will see how this one does this summer.... BTW, I knew the nozzles did not connect firmly in either case so used silicon glue to hold.... did not work either....

This is our second Pond Fish Feeder of the same brand. The first feeder top just screwed slightly into the top and could easily be lifted by an animal such as racoons. I taped it shut with heavy duty tape. The digital buttons on the display broke and the feeder itself was hard to program. It's a weird design to have screw anchors to place on a solid object like a board and then have to take the whole feeder apart to insert fresh C batteries when they are needed. Other than those criticisms the feeder does what it is supposed to do and you can safely go on vacation knowing your pond fish will be fed regularly. I researched other feeders and couldn't find a better option so decided to try again with this one. The feeder also is not watertight so I put a plastic shower cap over the top as well as a tray to cover the device from rain. With this new feeder I am hoping the new top clips will keep the animals from opening it and eating all the fish food.

Works as advertised. Easy to assemble and program. Like most pond owners, we have raccoons to deal with. This feeder is used on a small pond. nAttached is a photo of the Fish Mate, suspended from an inexpensive trellis purchased at Lidl; similar one is available on Amazon. With minor modification, it can be assembled low and wide to span the small pond. Bungee cords are hooked onto the feeder and the unit is suspended by a couple carabiners. No need for a cage or other type of enclosure with this arrangement. One month now, and no problems with raccoons. The anti-heron netting is below the feeder and the food just falls through. Bottom line, the feeder is reliable and a good value.

If you have a koi pond and need to travel, this automatic feeder is a game changer. Purchased this 3 years ago and it still works great.

I purchased this to feed my turtles while I am away for more than 3-4 days. I also have a small Eheim auto feeder for short durations away, but I needed something that could feed them for at least 2 weeks and this would likely last a couple months or more with the large hopper bin! Originally intended for winter use only as I house the turtles in the basement in winter and they go outdoors for summer, but this will be ideal outdoors as well. I am guessing as I haven't measured specifically but I'd say it holds about 2 gallon sized pails of food. That is the equivalent of 2 of the Reptomin 2 lb size of food pellets for turtles, which I also buy on Amazon. It was easy to install, assemble and set up, instructions no problem to follow were clear and simple. Setting meal times was easy to accomplish, with the ability to set 3 feedings per day. The trick is to get the meal SIZE correct. I initially only went through the procedure once but after a week realized it was feeding far more than required so I re-did it this time using a lower setting. I think the problem was that initially the auger isn't full so first result was skewed as the auger remains full after it starts so would of course release more food as a result. I recommend going through the meal size setup up to 5 times to get it accurate. Also has manual feed and an off setting, nice. I have had this for a few months and it works flawlessly. Only drawback is battery changes - instructions say must be changed within 60 seconds or all settings are lost. That might be a challenge to do in 60 seconds...haven't had to yet so we'll see! The feeder must be secured, in my case because it was in the basement and would be undisturbed by weather or wildlife outdoors I didn't think it was necessary until I realized any movement can cause food to fall out of the chute as the chute & auger remain full at all times. My turtles are quite active so bumping up against the sides of their tub or jumping off the basking dock caused enough movement to release food they didn't need. I zip-strapped it securely and tightly to a shelf across the top of the tub to prevent movement. Very happy with this purchase, very versatile and inexpensive compared to others I looked at.

Pond Fish l'ho testato per alcuni mesi e devo dire che sono soddisfatta e lo consiglio.L'unica pecca è che non ci sono le istruzioni in italiano per cui ho dovuto perdere tempo per la traduzione e la stampa,e poi mi sono aiutata con il video del produttore,che era in lingua madre senza la possibilità di traduzione,per cui mi sono aiutata ralle tando le immagini,per il resto tutto bene

Commandé pour nourrir mes koi japonais, cet appareil fonctionne très bien. Le mode d’emploi bien explicite m’a permis de programmer 3 repas/jour de 3 portions. La plage des portions par programmation est très étendue donc pas de soucis pour bien doser en fonction du nombre de poisson. Bref, vous avez pas mal de solutions pour nourrir vous poissons. Point positif aussi, le mode d’emploi est en plusieurs langues dont le Français et très explicite. Alimentation par piles (4 Duracel plus C de 1.5V) donc vous pouvez le disposer où vous voulez (durée entre 5 mois et 8 mois, dépend de la fréquence de nourriture). Personnellement je l’ai fixé sur une dalle 25x25 cm (en cas de grand vent ) Je vous recommande ce produit qui est bien fait. Prenez bien le temps de lire attentivement le mode d’emploi et cet appareil vous je rendra bien . Dom

Macht was es soll!! Füttern Stufe 1 3x täglich für 2 Koi und 5 Shubukin bis 40 cm. Fehlkonstruktion: die Schnecke! Die kleinste Berührung, wackelt verursacht das Austreten der Futters in der Förderschnecke! Erstinstallation etwas Gewöhnungsbedürftig und noch nicht selbstverständlich!! Und das im digitalen Zeitalter. Unverständlich wer das erfunden hat!

The settings did not work when trying to set up