Zoo Med Betta Automatic Feeder

• Releases food every 12 hours – two feeds a day on a fixed cycle. There is nothing to program and nothing to remember on the way out the door.
• Runs on one AA battery, supplied – no mains lead near the water, no plugpack and nothing extra on the powerboard. Keep a spare AA in the cabinet.
• Mounts two ways – directly to the side of a standard tank, or to a round bowl using the rail kit Zoo Med encloses. Round bowls are the case most feeders cannot handle at all.
• Built around micro pellets – Zoo Med designs it for their Micro Floating Betta Pellets, and includes a food sample so it works the day it arrives.
• Sample water conditioner in the box – enough for a first water change, not an ongoing supply.
• One configuration only – Zoo Med item BF-1. There is no larger or smaller version in the range to weigh up.

• Bettamatic feeder unit
• Rail kit, for round betta bowls and tanks the unit cannot clip to directly
• One AA battery
• Sample of Zoo Med Betta Food Pellets
• Sample of water conditioner

• An ongoing food supply. The sample gets you started – you will want a card of Micro Floating Betta Pellets alongside it.
• A heater. Bettas are tropical, and a small unheated bowl in a Brisbane winter still drops below where they are comfortable. The Zoo Med BettaTherm is the matching option.
• A filter, or filter cartridges.
• Spare batteries beyond the one supplied.

The unit is designed to mount directly to the side of a standard tank. That covers most small rimmed and rimless betta tanks.

Where it cannot clip directly – a round bowl, a curved wall, an unusually thick rim – the enclosed rail kit is the answer. Zoo Med supplies it in the box specifically for round betta bowls.

Zoo Med does not publish the feeder's dimensions or a maximum rim thickness, so we cannot give you a fit-check number. If your tank has a full glass lid with no gap at the back, measure the opening you would mount through before ordering.

Suitable for

• A single betta in a tank or bowl, fed twice daily
• Weekends and short trips where nobody is coming in to feed
• Households where feeding times drift – shift work, school runs, travel
• Round betta bowls, using the rail kit
• Keepers who want the food out of a child's reach and the portion out of their hands

Not suitable for

• Community tanks. It is built to feed one betta, not a stocked aquarium.
• Flake, freeze-dried bloodworm or wafer foods. Zoo Med designs it around their micro floating pellets.
• Keepers who want a different schedule. The 12-hour cycle is fixed, and Zoo Med publishes no way to change the interval.
• Long absences without any human check-in. A feeder handles food; it does not handle a heater failure, a dead filter or a fouled bowl.
• Fry or very young bettas needing several small feeds a day.

Zoo Med publishes the feeding interval, the battery requirement and the mounting options for the Bettamatic. It does not publish the unit's dimensions, the portion size per release, or a battery life figure.

We will not estimate those. A portion size in particular reads as a specification once it is printed, and getting it wrong in a small volume of water is exactly the problem this feeder is meant to solve.

The practical approach is to run it for a few days while you are home, watch what actually lands in the water, and adjust the food you load accordingly before you rely on it unattended.

Load only dry pellets. Damp food cakes in any feeder and stops releasing, and the failure is silent until you come home to a hungry fish.

Change the battery on a schedule rather than on failure. A flat AA in a feeder is not obvious from across the room.

Test the unit through a full cycle before any trip. Run it for two or three days with you present, so you see two to three releases land, then leave.

Keep the outside of the unit clear of condensation and splash. Wipe it dry when you top the tank up.

• Zoo Med Micro Floating Betta Pellets – the food the feeder is designed to dispense, and the one to keep on hand once the sample runs out.
• Zoo Med Betta Banquet 7 Day Blocks – the other way to cover an absence. Worth understanding the difference before you choose; see the questions below.
• Zoo Med BettaTherm Betta Heater – feeding is only half of leaving a betta alone. Temperature is the other half.
• Zoo Med Betta Cleaning Kit – for the water change that should bracket any trip away.
• Browse the full Zoo Med range for the rest of the betta line.

Zoo Med does not publish a separate warranty term for the Bettamatic, so we are not going to quote one. Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law apply in full and are not limited by anything on this page.

If the unit arrives faulty or stops cycling in normal use, contact us and we will sort it out.

This is a small, light item and ships as standard freight with no dangerous goods or cold chain restrictions.

How often does the Zoo Med Bettamatic feed?

The Zoo Med Bettamatic releases food every 12 hours, which works out to two feeds per day. The interval is fixed and Zoo Med publishes no way to adjust it. If your betta is currently fed once daily, moving to this feeder means halving the amount you load per release rather than keeping the same portion.

Does the Bettamatic need to be plugged in?

No. The Bettamatic runs on a single AA battery, which Zoo Med includes in the box. There is no mains lead, no plugpack and no 240 V connection, so it adds nothing to the powerboard and needs no RCD consideration. Keep a spare AA on hand and change it on a schedule rather than waiting for it to die.

Can I use the Bettamatic with a round betta bowl?

Yes. Zoo Med encloses a rail kit for exactly this, so the feeder can be fitted to round bowls and to tanks it cannot clip to directly. That covers the case most automatic feeders cannot handle, since almost all of them assume a flat rim.

What food does the Bettamatic take?

Zoo Med designs the Bettamatic around their Micro Floating Betta Pellets and includes a sample so it works on arrival. Flake, freeze-dried bloodworm and wafer foods are not what it is built to dispense – flake in particular bridges and jams in almost every pellet feeder. Stick to dry micro pellets.

Should I use an automatic feeder or a 7 day feeding block?

An automatic feeder delivers a real portion of real pellets on a schedule, so it suits repeated absences and ongoing use. A feeding block is a single-use vacation product with far lower nutrition per gram, intended to cover one trip of up to seven days. If you are away often, the feeder is the better long-term answer; for one holiday a year, a block is simpler.

Will the Bettamatic overfeed my betta?

It releases a set portion twice a day, so the amount depends entirely on how you load it. Zoo Med does not publish a portion size per release, which is why the sensible approach is to run the feeder for two or three days while you are home, watch what lands in the water, and adjust before relying on it unattended.