Reviews

Now that I have owned this product for almost 3 years I can give a thorough review. LIKES - it is dependable, it's never broken down, and I don't have my two cats double teaming me at 5 in the morning to feed them. Once you set it, you are pretty much done, forever.... I can count on it 100%. I had ONE issue last month, called tech support and spoke to the inventor HIMSELF! He was VERY helpful (VERY nice), stood by when I worked on trouble shooting the problem and stayed with me on the phone until we were sure it was back online. DISLIKES - I wish it was quieter, but for the most part I sleep right through the noise - but it's pretty loud. The very one thing I hate the most is that the bowl can move around. My cats can't get their noses under the shoot where most of the food collects, so they pull the bowl closer to them (and therefore out of the landing zone) so if I don't make sure it's aligned before I go to bed, I find cat food ALL over the place. It's a real mess. If I could re-design it I would have the shoot higher up so there is easier access to the whole bowl, and I would put some kind of a bowl guard down to keep the bowl from moving. I might even put the bowl at a slant so most of the food slides to the front of the bowl. For the most part I can't live without this product. If they ever broke down I would buy replacements in a heart beat!

Pluses: Works and is well constructed. Minuses: (1) The quantity adjustment is hair-trigger senstitive. There's no excuse for this in the electrical design. How about a multi-turn pot, or at least a usable full turn? (2) What about simple battery backup? If both your A/C power and you are out, kitty starves to death. The supplied timer is clumsy, and a digital one would suffice much better.

This feeder is wonderful. It's easy to assemble and program, and being able to control the amount of each feeding is great. I now feed my fat cat every 4 hours about 2 tbs. of dry food in an attempt to get her weight down. And after a week or so, I've created Pavlov's Cat, for when she hears the feeder start up, she goes SPRINTING to her food. Plus this feeder has saved sleeping time. My cat used to scratch and bite me around 6:30am because she's hungry, but no more. So I've finally found some sort of harmony with my cat.

I couldn't be more pleased with my new CSF-3 Cat Super Feeder. The Super Feeder company emailed me a video of "how to assemble". The feeder was very easy to assemble with this video. We had adopted a cat from the shelter that was abused and starved. Even though he now had a home and all the food he could want...If we left food in a bowl for him, he would eat the whole amount, then get sick. After two days of using the Super Feeder, he realized that food is always going to be available and he is not panicked. He is now calm and we don't have to interrupt our schedule to arrange his feedings. The timer was easy to operate also. Can't say enough great things about the company and the product. Don't hesitate to purchase one!!

This was easy to set up using the online video instructions, and worked great. Our food-obsessed cat was unable to get into it while we were away for several days. Very pleased with this feeder.

Reviews

i have used a diatom d1 for many years. this is the best filter for a fishtank i have ever seen. it will filter out ick and fungus from the water and replace it so you dont have to do water changes so often.if you have sick fish or just want to keep your tank cleen get a diatom and sit back.

Is the best if you are mechanically inclined. In other words, I got two of these babies (which let me add, work great). The only problem is after a couple months, it started to leak around the shaft seal...draining the tank. Fortunately it had been leaking for a few hours and we only lost a few gallons on the (oak wood) floor. The instructions do tell you about maintenance, but I wasn't ready for this! Vortex provides GREAT customer service and the quickly sent out replacement parts (while I was at it, got more earth and seals and grease, etc). I didn't want to send it back for warrantee because you know how that can be... Sooo...got the new seal in, and all was working well for about 2-3 days, when I noticed that when I turned the unit on, I had to twist the motor as it seemed like the motor was not lined up with the bearings (never did the bearings come out). Tech support told me to check it and I told them I didn't play with he bearings. As nice as they are, they couldn't help me. Soooo...in the mean time, the other unit started to leak and replaced the bearing seal(as by this time I have my own arsenal of parts just in case). This unit worked well and then started with the binding problems the first unit had. To make a real long story longer...i resorted to the last resort, and took the whole unit (motor) apart. NOTHING was binding, so I figured "what could go wrong now" so I put a little itty bitty touch of grease on the shaft and bearings and the unit works like new again. Just let me add, that when I tried "tweaking" the motor, you put an excess strain on the plastic impeller housing. Well...it cracked. Don't bother using ACETONE as the instructions tell you to do with small hairline cracks...it doesn't work. I ended up using JB weld, and laid the unit on its side until the epoxy set up and left if for 24 hours to make sure. ALL is well! Shall I make this story longer? OK...glad you said yes. Back to the shaft seal...If you order the seal, the manufacture sends you a "very small" plastic baggie with folded edges with a gasket shellac. Great idea, as all you need is a SMALL amount. But it took me a few weeks to get to this repair job that the sealer dried up...DOH! So I ordered more from the man and I have no clue what they did when they sent me a jar of it, and when I opened the small jar, there was nothing in it! Hummmm... Soooo....they did tell me what I thought it was, and the product you can use is (can I say this on the air???) PERMATEX Aviation Form-a-Gasket. Get the one with the small brush in the jar...not the spray, and do yourself a favor, not the super-duper high temp stuff...been there, done that. PERMATEX Aviation Form-a Gasket. It's brown smelly stuff that works great, and it's for wet applications. I've used it on head gaskets, valve cover gaskets, and it will hold the seal tight with minor leaks if you do develop one. Follow the instructions...a little goes a long way. More is not better. A nice even coat is all you need. Their online manual is pretty good. I have experience only with the XL, not the D-1, but I'm sure both motors are close in design and idiosyncrasies. So overall, I gave this unit (plus tech support) a two thumbs up for their time and and quality and will buy it again if I had to get another or recommend one. The maintenance is easy and fast, just be ready to maintain this unit like a fine piece of machinery and it's not for the faint hearted. Good price for this D-1 but as far as 180 and change....??? Hummm...highly unlikely. 100 bucks for the XL. If you need some help with this unit, please feel free to e-mail me and I'll try and help you. But do try the tech support first. They were great!

Reviews

This stand looks very stylish, is sturdy, and blends well with my antique style furniture. It has to be assembled and the assembly instructions were very clear for me even though I don't do this type of things very often. However, some parts (cam locks and compression dowels) are made of plastic and some actually broke on me as I was lifting and moving the elements around during the assembly. So I ended up removing them and buying new metal ones at Home Depot, which I recommend doing instead of using the flimsy plastic parts. I was disappointed to find out that the stand was not made of solid wood but of particle board. That was a little bit of a challenge for me because some of the pre-drilled holes for screws easily became loose and did not really hold the screws tightly, especially the small screws on the doors -- so I used wood glue to fill them up and then re-inserted the screws, and that helped, I think. Also, some parts are not made quite even. That was true especially for the bottom support: it was too wide and the stand wobbled on assembly. I had to file it to make it even. All in all, I put more assembly work into it that I had thought I would. All that being said, the stand has been in use under a 29-gallon tank for almost a year now and has been fine. I like the small shelves inside, and you can position them at different heights. The back of the stand has a large height-long vertical opening in the middle, which can be used to connect tubing and cables. I have actually covered some of the opening so that small containers I keep on the shelves don't fall out.

Reviews

This ia a nice sized product with a decent amount of storage space, and it looks nice. The size is good. The main negatives are that it came with several scratches, takes over an hour to put together and, most importantly, if it gets any water on it that doesn't get wiped off very quickly, there will be a slight amount of bubble damage at the surface (not a great quality for an aquarium stand). However, if aware of this and careful to clean up quickly, it isn't a major problem, and the scratches were easily covered with a mood marker pen. Overall, it is a good product for the money.

Reviews

This book is NOT a complete pet owner's manual. It's content is limited and was not that much help.

This book features plenty of details on which marine fish and invertebrates can coexist. This book also has material on successful marine aquarium management. If you are considering to begin keeping a saltwater aquarium, this book is a nice guide.

Wonderful book as an "introduction" to the world of starting and maintaining a salt water aquarium. It is excellent in giving anyone who is think of starting a tank the basics of set-up and more importantly, what to expect as the tank matures. My 75 gallon tank is now 4 months old and has done great right from the start in large part due to the knowledge I gained from this book.

Strengths: Good beginners' guide, including a 30 gallon tank setup, start-to-finish. Reasonable "fish compatibility" guide.Weaknesses: Brief; the description of fishes/invertebrates for stocking your tank is pretty short. The salinity calculation is more complex than it needs to be, and lighting advice is dated.John Tullock advocates a setup with lots of live rock, and with a protein skimmer. This is the preferred saltwater setup nowadays, as it sets up a mini-environment for your fish. He closes the book with a walk-through of a 30 gallon "mini-reef" setup, including curing live rock yourself (if you don't live where a local fish store stocks pre-cured live rock), which also includes fish recommendations.

Once I started reading this book I couldn't stop until I was done. I have fairly good experience keeping a fresh water tank but I never had a marine one, or for that matter I never read anything about it. This was my first book on the subject and I found it to have all necessary information to get me familiar with what is required to start a marine tank and how involved is the process of maintaining it. The step-by-step guide on who to setup a mini-reef tank is also very helpful. I also liked the explanation of different filtration systems (Berlin, Smithsonian, Monaco).The book has more text than photos so it might appear a little bit overwhelming. But that is good because the text gives good information and is well written. Not that this book doesn't have any pictures, it does have good ones, but there are some pages that are just text.All in all I would recommend this book to anyone thinking about starting a marine aquarium. This book will tell you if that is something you can commit to or not. And if you choose to do it, this book would definitely be valuable as a reference.

Reviews

This book had lots of good information on live bearers. I think it's an excellent source to start out with. If you are looking for very specific information, this may not be the book for you. I was really looking for some Platy specific requirements that don't necessarily include breeding, and other than a short paragraph, there wasn't hardly any information tuned especially for Platys. That being said, It's a great starting place for breeding live bearers. The pictures of Guppies & Mollies were lovely. The fish illness discriptions were well written. But you should not use this as your sole source of information on these types of fish.

This book was helpful, but did not have as much on Mollies as I hoped. It still is packed with lots of good information.

This book was helpful for me, as I am learning how to breed and care for mollies, guppies, and platys. It was useful in identifying and treating diseases, perfecting my tank, and recognizing the sexes and different types of live bearing fish. The photos are also spectacular

If you are a new fish keeper don't buy this book for the setup tips. If you are looking for a book about live-bearers the sections about specific species are good and can be helpful but the other sections on care and aquarium setup are lacking. I would suggest a more comprehensive book that can be used as they advance through the hobby. I've seen several more comprehensive guides to get someone started, and I've found the Aquarium Atlas series by Baensch to be helpful in species selection and even the sections on setup and equipment are good. CONCLUSION: Buy this book for the info on live bearers, if you want info on other aspects of fishkeeping as well, look elsewhere.

I am an amature, first time fish owner and I found this book to have everything I needed to raise healthy happy guppies, mollies and platys. I would highly recommend it. The author explains everything in easy to understand terms. You'll have no trouble raising your fish to be as healthy and happy as mine.

Reviews

I bought this a long time ago, and love using it. My grown daughter has had an aquarium, so I bought this as a gift for her since I like it so much. It is a beautifully illustrated guide, logically catagorized, and very easy to use and to find info that you need. I strongly recommend it for anyone who loves to keep or know more about aquarium fish (freshwater and marine) 5 stars!!!

I concur with the other reviewers on bad proofreading. The icons cannot be relied on, even if you manage to figure out the mysterious equivalence between liters and cubic meters. Here's a couple other problems found in a quick read of a couple species I'm familiar with: Beta Fighting Fish (This book's symbols: Single Specimen and good community fish, minimum tank size 24 which is the same as most other beginner fish, but from reading another book they are happiest in 1 liter stagnant ponds with no other fish around to harrass them. I tried my beta in a 28 gallon tank and when three mollies were added, it showed signs of stress, so it is back in it's tiny tank and doing fine again.); Lyretail Black Molly is the only Molly listed while my pet store has a half dozen varieties.. Silver, Dalmation, standard tail, etc. (This book lists it as Single Specimen, not a community fish while another book that focuses on Mollies says these are happiest when scooling with others of the same kind.) The organization and indexing is not suitable for a beginner. Suppose you wanted to find the Molly, like I did. You would have to know it is categorized as a Freshwater Livebearer AND called Poecilia Sphenops, or look it up under the common name index Lyretail Black Molly (sorted with the L's). Or, do like I did and flip through the pictures until you find it. I'm returning this book and eagerly waiting for the 2nd or 3rd edition. Even though I really like the pictures, I need something more than a picture book.

We recently had the MISfortune of checking out the book: "THE AQUARIUM FISH HANDBOOK" from the library as we are beginning to get into tropical fish. While the reviews and cover-page blurbs sound glowing - within a few hours we found that the book was confusing (to say the least) on many points! The first point is the "Minimum Volume" symbol; 24, 36, 48, 60, or 72 WHATS? The "Key" page says it could be "...gallons/liters or ... cubic feet/meters." There's a BIT of difference between a liter and a cubic meter, isn't there? If these are 'relative numbers' then 'relative to WHAT? Tank size, fish population, square inches, ??? Then there are the illustrations on page 12! On the bar graph "Tropical freshwater" is blue and is supposed to represent 1 inch of fish per 12 sq. in. of tank, "Tropical marine" is pink and represents 1 inch per 48 sq. in. but in the charts at the bottom of the page - the "tropical" box shows 9 pink fish while the "marine" box shows 36 BLUE fish! All in all, those calculations are correct but reversed! Then, to add insult to injury, the calculation for "Coldwater": four hundred and forty two divided by ONE HUNDRED and thirty? The proofreader was napping on this one! The other "Oopsie" we have spotted in our cursory scan through the book was on page 103, re Altum Angelfish. The little Hand Symbol of dificulty rates this fish as number ONE or "Easiest to care for" while the "Special care" paragraph of this section states "This fish ... is an extremely dificult and delicate fish to keep"???? Which is it? And this is just from a brief scan through the book from a simple, logical viewpoint. Paraphrasing the TV show "CSI": "little mistake - BIG mistake"! With these errors that should be easy to spot in the book - can we REALLY rely on the OTHER data presented therein? It is not too great a stretch of imagination that just these errors and confusions I have named could cost someone a good deal of effort, time AND money if someone relied 100% on this book! Clearly, we are glad that we checked the book out of our local library - for FREE - and didn't waste our money on it!

I've got to disagree with the previous reviewer, Gen, on this one! I would NOT recommend this book. It is very attractive with lovely pictures, but I found it full of errors and contradictions. Here are a few I found in about 20 minutes of browsing: page 12: the graphics of tropical and marine fish are reversed, making it look like it's okay to keep 36 inches of marine fish when it's really 9 (the text is correct) page 103: the Altum Angelfish is desribed as "an extremely difficult and delicate fish to keep," but the it gets a 1 (easiest) on the "ease of keeping" scale. Huh? Numerous examples of fish being given a "safe with small fish" symbol, but being described in the text as eating small fish, See porkfish (page 239), flame hawkfish (238) and long-nosed hawkfish (239), for example. I bought this book to help me select peaceful marine fish that would be reef-safe, but because of these issues it's useless to me and I'm returning it. It's a shame, because it is a great-looking, well-organzied book.

I've been keeping fish for 17 years and this is the best book I have found that describes all the fish I've owned! Great descriptions on cichlids and includes scientific names and common names. Very easy to read (not tiny print and not boring). I love this book - the photos are clear and not all blurry or cheap quality. DK books photograph quality! The fact that it's spiral bound means I can lie down in bed and browse all the different fish without having to push the cover back. I can do my daily stretching while reading about fish! How relaxing and convenient! GREAT BOOK.