Review on 🐠 Effortless Betta Care: Introducing the Zoo Med BettaMatic Automatic Daily Betta Feeder by David Edwards

Let's see what that thing is. This is a small clock mechanism similar to that found in any cheap wall clock. I was confused at first because it even has a dial to set the time on the back and I thought it needed to be set somehow but it doesn't. It runs on one AA battery, which is included. The small camshaft at the front comes with a plastic ball when you fill it with food and reassemble it. The ball is a little tricky - it's made of a harder plastic than I expected and there are a few warnings in the instructions not to break the three clips that hold it together. The problem is that it seems brittle and too easy to break. Once opened, filling is not that easy. I squeezed a half and ended up with food all over the table. The best way to fill it is to take the half with the mounting hole and place it on something soft to keep it from rolling around, fill it with food and then insert the funnel in using the guide tab to align. Again you have to be careful when putting it back together lest you hit it and spill food all over the place or shift it and break one or more of the clips. Installation wasn't as easy as pictured. If you have a tank with a plastic lip on top, you can't mount it directly onto it. The mounting pitch is only about 1/4 inch. So if you don't use a container without an eyelet, you will have to use a rail set, which makes it very cumbersome. The guide set is inserted into the closed part. The clamp is light enough and sits on top of the tank's opening. When mounted on the rails, the way the food spins can bounce off the rails, so don't get too close to the rim of the tank on the right Side or put the feed could bounce rather than fall into the water. The clock motor rotates the ball, which picks up the food and then distributes it. I found it very funny that the instructions kept reminding you to only use floating food, but when I added a few pellets from the included trial food to the tank to see if my chicken liked it, it drowned immediately. The pellets were also quite large and one of my wives didn't seem to like it as they were too large. or her mouth. I would recommend Hikari Betta Bio-Gold Baby Pellets for small fish, they love them and I think more will end up in the aquarium. If the feed is closed, only a few pellets are eaten. So overall not a bad product but with some quality control and improvements in design and materials this could be a great product. I would like the clip to be more versatile so it can be attached to plastic rimmed tanks and make the ball easier to open, close and fill. It's way better than those weekend maintenance feed pellets.