Fish Mate P7000 Large, 6 lbs Capacity, Rain-Resistant Automatic Pond Fish Feeder

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 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 two of these feeders to feed my Chinese catfish in my aquaponics totes while I was on vacation. These held more than enough food for while I was gone and dispensed the food perfectly. I do wish the dispensing spout was longer, the tabs on the cover were more sturdy (you must push down hard on the cover before unlatching the tabs), and that programming was easier. The instructions for programming are clear, but I had to break out the instructions to adjust feeding times and amounts. Some reviewers questioned the feeder’s weather resistance. My two feeders survived two bouts of heavy rain and wind without breaking or allowing water into the hoppers. These feeders aren’t cheap, but they work and have the largest capacity I’ve seen.

Product did exactly what it was supposed to. Our pond is very small, 4 feet deep and 6 feet in length, 4 koi,6 goldfish and a pleco. My fish were fed every single day on time for the whole eight days we were gone. I forgot to take pictures but I did exactly what other reviewers said to do which was to bungie cord it to a board or in place somehow and cover it with a bucket. Good thing I did because our security cameras caught a possum visiting the pond one night. I don't know if it's possible but I think the possum stole a pleco out of my pond. I haven't seen it since we left for vacation. We set it up a couple of days before vacation to make sure it would do its thing. I highly recommend this product.