The Sera X-Feeder and XS-Feeder are two automatic fish food dispensers that Sera introduced last year but which are finally landing on American shores this month. While the slight difference in the name might lead you to believe that these auto fish feeders are in some way similar these two pieces of aquarium nutrition equipment have very little in common other than their function.
The XS-Feeder is a typical classic rotating hopper style fish food dispenser the Sera X-Feeder is a completely new design that we haven’t yet seen mass produced for the wider aquarium hobby. Instead of a rotating drum that simply drops food into the aquarium like the Sera XS-Feeder, the Sera X-Feeder uses a screw-type auger at the bottom of the device to push food into the aquarium with greater precision and more flexibility.
It’s not widely discussed but most hobby-grade automatic fish feeders are primarily intended to be used with pelleted foods since they are usually more homogenous in size and shape than something like flake food. Although pellets are the ideal food for automatic fish feeders Sera has considered our range of preferences and offers an optional separate auger that has more threads and is better suited for doling out the flakes as well as smaller pellets.
Sera opted to further differentiate their automatic fish feeders with the X-Feeder being capable of multiple feedings and numerous setpoints which is programmed with a built-in LCD display while the XS-Feeder is more limited in the number of feedings and scheduling times. Sera USA just received their first batches of automatic fish food dispensers this month and for the price we’re much more interested in the ~$65 X-Feeder than the ~$55 XS-Feeder and are looking forward to putting both models though their paces keeping our higher metabolism fish fed more constantly than we tend to do by hand. [Sera]
