DIY Fish Food...

[djdubdub]

Someone please help me...

As I recall, one of the MAAST meetings (possibly Jan meeting or early Feb) DIY fish food was a topic...

Well... I missed this meeting...

Any suggestions (or even the recipe from the meeting)???

Thanks...

[Henry]

you read my mind. I was thinking the same thing. does anyone out there have any homemade recipes? Please help. :grin: :grin: :grin:


Henry

[Chris]

LOL @ Josh....

There's Eric Borneman's (http://www.marshreef.org/modules.php?name=Sections&sop=viewarticle&artid=2) recipe...

At the Feb meeting I think ours consisted of Scallops, clams, squid, shrimp & mussles for the raw foods. We also added in Nori & decapsulated brine shrimp eggs. Don't remember if there was anything more.

8)

[utmachete]

I have my own recipe and it has worked pretty well so far here goes.
Grocery store List
Frozen squid
frozen shrimp uncooked (smaller the better)

LFS list
Large frozen block of Brine shrimp (you know the ones that are in a large thick square sheet)
Large frozen block of Krill

Aquarium Items
Caluerpa (edible type for tangs like grape) or seaweed from grocery store

Walmart
small cheap food processor $5
Ice cube trays


I put equal parts of the frozen Shrimp and squid in the food processor and chop it up into diced pea sized pieces (can also put clam meat if you have carnivours and no live clams in your aquarium Caution do not feed clams to your fish unless you are never going to keep clams) before the last couple of chops from the food grater put your Krill in so that they are basically chopped in half.

Take this concoction out of the food processor and place in bowl. Then add your brine shrimp (run the bag under water to thaw) and your caluerpa and mix together with a wooden spoon. Break the caluerpa up as you mix. At this time you can add some larger chunks of squid or Krill if you have large predatory fish or an abundance of crabs.

If the mixture is to thick you can add some dechlorinated water to it to make it pudding like. After your mixture is ready pour into ice-cube trays and hide in the freezer. When they are frozen quickly take the ice-cube trays out and pop the frozen food cubes out of the trays, cut into smaller pieces if needed. Store the cubes in ziploc bags in freezer for easy use. Now wash the trays and make sure you clean your mess up because that stuff really smells and your roomates or significant other might be utterly disgusted.

Obviously you should figure out what your fish like and just throw it into the mix. Large items should be chopped so that your fish can easily eat it and none will be left to rot in your tank.

I feed this variaty to my fish and they love me. They follow me around the tank whenever I am near and they are very healthy fish. I only feed once a day and no more than the can eat in a couple of minutes.
I have a pair of green bird wrasses, sailfin and hippo tang, Large Maroon Goldstripped Clown, Cleaner Wrasse, Hawkfish, and lots of corals and inverts.
Good luck, hope this helps ;)

[Troy Valentine]

Utmachete-

That is interesting about never feeding clams to your fish. I have never heard that before...... Considering most of the stuff we feed our tanks we have living in it... I Learn something new everyday 8)

[/quote]

[Henry]

I found this on RC. maybe this can help. I think this came from goby. Pretty interesting.

"ok,

this is what i did :

took 1/2 package of ocean nutrition frozen stuff (the herbavore stuff)

took 1/2 package of frozen lifeline

took some sally's frozen brine (half of a small package)

took a few spoonfulls of some pellet marine pellet stuff (vibra gro maybe??)

took a spoonfull of minced garlic, and all the water that was in a small jar

took 2 sheets of green nori, and 1 sheet of red nori

took 1 bottle of kent zoe, or similar product

threw it in the blender, and ground it all up!!!

the idea is that the liquid stuff (mostly spirulina) will help the frozen stuff get mixed in good without having to thaw it out. The garlic was a nice addition, it stinks, but the fish still eat it. The nori keeps it from getting to ground up (into a soup) and the pellets dont get ground up either.

now comes the best part... after you get a good paste going in the blender, you take the frozen food tray that you got the stuff from in the first place, and you smash it back into the tray. Making little ice-cubes, just like they do for the commercial stuff. stick the rest (i made 3.5 tray's full in one batch) in the fridge while the first tray full freezes, once its frozen, pop out the cubes into a tupperware, and start the messy tray filling process again. I did it a while back ,and its still keeping the fish full and happy. The key is using some frozen food that you can reuse the packaging to make little cubes out of."

Henry

[djdubdub]

Awesome info everyone!!!

I just have to make sure I don't get my MAAST recipes mixed up with my regular food recipes...

Heck... At this pace, we can market a "MAAST Fish Food" Line...

Isn't Exotic Tropicals local???

[utmachete]

Troy, One of the guys in the ARK told me that, supposedly some Wrasses aquire a taste for clams and well. I know my bird wrasses loved clams since I got them three small clams have been eaten. I have a 6" ultra Maxima that is still OK though. It all matters on the Fish you have in your tank, I feed shrimp but I wouldn't dare put a live shrimp in my tank my wrasses would tear it to bits. I don't put crab meat in my mix but every once in a while one of my sally light foots will lose a leg to a wrasse. So maybe the theory is boggus but I really don't want to lose my Clam.
I don't know seems like everytime I go out and eat some raw oysters when I come home I think man I bet that Blue clam would be pretty tasty. If I was a fish I would eat that clam in a heart beat hehe.

I like the recipe I have because it cost near to nothing I can make about a 3 months supply for like $15. The brine shrimp and krill are the most expensive. I hate almost all the dry foods the fish just aren't happy about eating it and then usually they won't touch it unless they haven't been fed in a while.

I say if your going to take your fish out of the wild and put them in Jail at least feed them something they get excited about. Dry foods would be like eating dry oatmeal and beef jerky everyday. Everytime I go to the LFS I get a tea-spoon of Live brine as a treat for my fish.

[Troy Valentine]

Interesting I hope my fish don't turn on any of my 4 clams, that would be an expensive meal. I've been feeding my fish clams for several months now, I haven't seen any ill effects from it.... yet... I will heed the warning though. Thank you for the info utmachete. ;)

[jim2508]

For the homemade frozen food makers. You can use plastic ice cube trays called cocktail ice cubes. There smaller ice cubes than the standard you always see. When I was breeding ciclids I used to hatch my brineshrimp eggs net and rince them and fill my cocktail ice cube trays with newly hatched brine shrimp and freeze them down. I had fresh frozen brine shrimp anytime I needed them for feeding newly hatched fish. Jim

[Tim Marvin]

Holy cow Jim! How did you drag up this thread from a year and a half ago? It was a pretty good thread though.