DIY Refridgerated Auto Feeding Unit

Got the fridge drilled and the plumbing glued together. Disassembled the dosing pump to remove the power cord last night, now I just gotta drill a hole to run that through. Then its final gluing and some spray foam and I'm all done

I did decide to put a new coat of paint on the fridge though

All done

Finished gluing it tonight, ran the power for the dosing pump, touched up the paint.

Now I just need to finish the other projects so I can get them all on the new system.

Total cost:
Mini fridge: Free at garage sale
Peristaltic Dosing Pump with built in controller $35.50 ( I bought 2 of them for $71)
Pipe, glue, fittings paint maybe $25?

So I'd say easily doable for an inline refrigerated auto feeder for under $60 Best part is I have everything now except another mini fridge to build a second one.

Got the refrigerated auto feeder all done, just need to finish my sump and plumb it all together,thought I'd share some photos of what I managed to get done on my day off. I think the final cost on the auto feeder was under $60.

It started life as a free brown mini fridge. Threw a coat of semi gloss black on it to match the rest of the setup.


Here is the outside plumbing and hole where the power cord comes out for the doser. I took apart the dosing pump and unwired the power cord and ran it through the side so I didnt have to drill a hole the size of the plug and then fill it in.


Inside of the fridge, I kept the freezer in there since I didnt need any more room really and I can keep all the frozen mysis and plankton in here and keep the wife happy I used a piece of pipe to mount the doser on and left enough extra cord so I can pull it out and work on it or change settings easily.

Classy! Looks nice. I can't wait until you have everything setup and ready to go. It just goes to show how long it takes to set up an aquarium.

Pufferfreak wrote:Classy! Looks nice. I can't wait until you have everything setup and ready to go. It just goes to show how long it takes to set up an aquarium.

Thanks

It only takes this long when your too cheap to pay retail for anything and insist on buying everything used on craigslist, ebay, or building it yourself

Got the auto feeder plumbed into the tank on its closed loop so this is all finished other than running water through it. Found a place not to far from me that carrys ocean nutrition food, so I need to get a bottle of that to feed.

A local reefer was nice enough to hook me up with a bunch of 3/4" spaflex tubing at $1 a foot so that should help with insulating the water too.

Hows this going ? any problems with the doser in the fridge ?

Nope no problems at all

I have 2 of them now, when I have time I'm going to add a venturi onto it as a precaution if the doser ever goes out or the tubing breaks.

I've been dosing Oyster feast twice a day for the last couple weeks, I'm going to be adding a few other foods on to it soon.

AquaticEngineer wrote:Nope no problems at all

I have 2 of them now, when I have time I'm going to add a venturi onto it as a precaution if the doser ever goes out or the tubing breaks.

I've been dosing Oyster feast twice a day for the last couple weeks, I'm going to be adding a few other foods on to it soon.

Sounds good. I'm assuming you haven't observed any large detriment in the water quality?

None at all.