Interesting topic, because I'm going on a 1 month trip and also trying to automate the feeding.
Trial one of the cheapo $18 auto feeders with the transparent turnwheel thing. Not good.
It's impossible to get the amount to be consistent because of the clumping of the food from the moisture and there's no way the thing will be able to dispense algae wafers and other large sized shrimp food unless I crash the food first...
So I tried using fine grains of fish food (the one with the gold colored cap, dunno what Hong) as there're some Boraras in the tank too but will switch to the expensive hikari shrimp cuisine for the real trip. It was Ok for about a week, but food started getting soggy and sticking to the walls of the container after that. The clumping got real bad and sometimes very little comes out. Widening the hole causes a huge amount to be dumped into the tank. This will not do for a 1 month trip...
Finally bit the bullet and bought the Eheim auto feeder, which claims to prevent moisture. Food still gets abit damp and a small amount will stick to the walls after a few weeks, but because of the design of the turnwheel, any clumps (very little even after a month) do not get stuck at the exit so the amount that comes out each time is very consistent.
Still, it also suffers from not being able to dispense irregular shaped shrimp food, eg. wafers, and I cannot mix different sized food (the sizes will separate out by gravity).
I wonder how those with shrimp racks do? Many many auto feeders?
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