It may help you to get more fish on feed by soaking the feed in water for about 7-10 minutes before throwing it in the water. Obviously, this means feeding by hand as there's no way to do that with an automated feeder. But, you will get more fish on the feed quicker. As you observe fish taking feed early on, you'll see several fish take a pellet in and then spit it back out. With the feed a bit mushy, there is far less spitting of the feed.

Once the fish know they love the feed, they'll take the dry feed with no hesitation.

If you do the hydrated feed route to get started, do it at the same place as the automated feeder.