Feeds them while you're away, on the dot.
One to four feeds a day at the same time, whether or not anyone remembers. The consistency is worth as much as the holiday cover, since a fixed routine suits fish better than a variable one.
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Why you'll love it
The commonest way a tank crashes is a well meaning neighbour tipping in a fortnight of food at once. A measured portion on a timer removes the judgement call entirely.
The drum sits sealed above the waterline, so the humidity that clumps pellets in an open hopper cannot get at it. A jammed feeder is worse than none, because you leave believing it works.
Feeders that run a fortnight per charge get forgotten and die mid holiday. This one outlasts any trip you are likely to take, and charges from the same cable as your phone.
Good fit if
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The obvious use is a holiday, but the better argument is everyday regularity. Fish anticipate feeding and their digestion works to a rhythm, and a household where someone feeds at seven one day and eleven the next is a household where portions also vary, usually upwards because nobody is sure whether the fish have been fed.
Double feeding is a genuinely common problem in a shared house, and it goes straight into the water as ammonia. A feeder removes the ambiguity: it has fed or it has not, and the drum shows you how much has gone.
The working rule is what the fish clear in about two minutes. Set the outlet so that a single cycle delivers that and no more, and watch a full feed before trusting it. It is always less food than it looks like it should be, and the commonest mistake is setting a generous dose because the amount seems too small.
Two smaller feeds are usually better than one large one for small fish with fast metabolisms, and it also means a single misfire matters less. If the tank is heavily planted or has bottom feeders, remember they get very little of a surface feed and may need separate feeding after lights out.
Everything that goes wrong with a drum feeder comes back to moisture. Warm humid air rises from the tank, condenses inside the hopper, and flake swells into a plug that blocks the outlet. From the outside a jammed feeder looks exactly like a working one, which is why testing matters.
Mount it clear of the water surface, keep the tank lid closed so less humid air reaches it, and use the desiccant compartment if there is one. Pellets cope with damp considerably better than flake, so if you are going away for a fortnight it is worth switching the tank to pellet in advance.
In the box
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The details
About two months per charge means charging it before every trip regardless of what the indicator says, since a feeder that dies on day three of a fortnight is worse than no feeder at all. Charge it fully rather than topping it up.
Empty and dry the hopper between trips rather than leaving food in it for months. Old flake goes stale and loses vitamins, and stale food packed against the outlet is exactly what forms a plug. Wipe the drum out and let it air before refilling.
Loved by real pet parents
We were gone a fortnight in August and the 500 ml drum did not need topping up once. Set for two feeds a day, it dropped the same portion every time. No neighbour, no key, and no worrying about what a fortnight of food at once would do to the water.
It works exactly as described and the clamp is solid on my rim. At 18 cm tall it does stand up above the tank quite a lot, so if you have a shelf close above you will want to measure first. Mine just clears it.
Charged it over USB when it arrived in October and it has been running two feeds a day ever since without needing more power. The claim of about two months is, if anything, conservative in my experience. Same cable as my phone, so there is no special lead to lose.
It fires reliably and the drum has stayed dry, which was my main worry. What I cannot do is make the portion much smaller, so I run one feed a day instead of two and accept that. Fine for a holiday, not what I would use every day.
Feeders I have used before clogged because damp got into the hopper. The drum on this one is sealed and sits above the water, and after two weeks in July the pellets poured out as freely as on day one. That is the whole game with these things.
Does the job well and I like that it takes no space on the cabinet because it hangs off the rim. Tightening the clamp enough to feel secure left a faint mark on the plastic trim. Nothing that shows unless you go looking for it.
Young fish want little and often and I cannot be home for that. Set to four drops across the day, the growing on tank ticks along without me. The drum holds enough for weeks at those small portions.
I ran it while I was still at home to see exactly what fell in, which I would suggest to anyone. Once the portion looked right I stopped thinking about it. Came back to clear water and no leftover food sitting on the substrate.
Once set up it has been faultless, including through a ten day trip. Working the programming out from the printed sheet took me a good twenty minutes and some trial and error. After that you never touch it again.
Good questions
Yes, and with pellets, powders and strips. Flake is the one worth testing before you travel: it is the lightest, so it is the most likely to bridge across the opening rather than fall.
Feeding stops, but it does not dump the hopper. Charge it fully the day before you go and two months of headroom means a fortnight away is never close to the limit.
Only if the lid has a feeding flap or a gap at the rim for the clamp. The bracket needs an edge to grip and the chute needs clear air below it.
Yes, though flake absorbs moisture and is more prone to clogging than pellet. If you are away for more than a few days, switching to pellet beforehand is the safer option.
Feeding stops. Charge it fully before every trip, and for a longer holiday ask someone to look in halfway rather than relying on a single point of failure.
It clamps to the rim and needs clear space above. On a fully hooded tank a slim tank side feeder that hooks over the glass is the better fit.
Last reviewed 30 August 2026