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ZAF, the first open source fully automated feeder for aquatic facilities

Authors :
Merlin Lange
AhmetCan Solak
Shruthi Vijay Kumar
Hirofumi Kobayashi
Bin Yang
Loïc Alain Royer
Source :
eLife, Vol 10 (2021)
Publication Year :
2021
Publisher :
eLife Sciences Publications Ltd, 2021.

Abstract

In the past few decades, aquatic animals have become popular model organisms in biology, spurring a growing need for establishing aquatic facilities. Zebrafish are widely studied and relatively easy to culture using commercial systems. However, a challenging aspect of maintaining aquatic facilities is animal feeding, which is both time- and resource-consuming. We have developed an open-source fully automatic daily feeding system, Zebrafish Automatic Feeder (ZAF). ZAF is reliable, provides a standardized amount of food to every tank, is cost-efficient and easy to build. The advanced version, ZAF+, allows for the precise control of food distribution as a function of fish density per tank, and has a user-friendly interface. Both ZAF and ZAF+ are adaptable to any laboratory environment and facilitate the implementation of aquatic colonies. Here, we provide all blueprints and instructions for building the mechanics, electronics, fluidics, as well as to setup the control software and its user-friendly graphical interface. Importantly, the design is modular and can be scaled to meet different user needs. Furthermore, our results show that ZAF and ZAF+ do not adversely affect zebrafish culture, enabling fully automatic feeding for any aquatic facility.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
2050084X
Volume :
10
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
eLife
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.16cc32e7f95843ceac4b2f535780145e
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74234