DIY fish food

[Zante]

I have discus, and I make their food by blending fish, shrimp, mussels and other seafood in varying proportions.

I blend in some veggies in proportion of a quarter (or just slightly less). Spinach, zucchini, carrots, peas, etc... I try to change every time so they get a varied diet.
I also always add some garlic and a vitamins pill

I add dried tubifex and/or bloodworm and a bit of flake to dry up the mush a bit.

Then I thicken the lot with agar agar, that holds very well in water and when it's set I freeze it until it is needed.


... now the question: can this be fed to marine fish?
I can't see a problem with it, but I'm very much a noob with salt, I want to ask about every detail, even if it may sound silly.

 

[rssjsb]

It's good to ask. I also make my own frozen food, but mine isn't as involved as yours. I blend up squid, shrimp, scallops, and (sometimes) clam until it's the right size, then freeze it. I feed this to my fresh and saltwater tanks, alternated with frozen mysis, pellets, and flakes. My reef tank is on an autofeeder, so gets several small meals of pellets throughout the day. I also feed nori, cyclopeeze, and ova separately on occasion. Personally, I avoid using bloodworms.

I've fed zucchini to my freshwater tanks before (especially when I had plecos), but not to my salt tanks. Nori is the only veggie I use. Not saying it's harmful, but I just don't do it. A lot of people on here will tell you that you shouldn't feed non-marine foods to marine animals. I think the debate is similar to that surrounding the use of beefheart for discus or FW angels.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

My approach is similar to Robin's. I chop up shrimp, scallop, salmon and clam, bag and freeze it. I supplement with flake, nori, pellets, and mysis, plus sometimes other frozen foods.

I have added flake to the chopped seafood mix before but wonder whether it gets eaten or just fouls the water. I would have the same question about your mix - are the fish eating anything besides the meat? If it all gets eaten, then I don't see any harm.

 

[Zante]

They most definitely are, mostly because it's not chopped, it's blended all together in a puree.

Then the mush is dried by adding flake and dried critters (tubifex, brine shrimp, bloodworm) and mixing it well and further thickened with agar agar.

The end result is like a mousse, but it holds together very well in the water, so the fish take bites out of it. As the discus peck at it is starts to crumble away a little bit so the tetras and the corys are also fed.

Not sure how it would hold in the currents of a marine tank though... I guess I'll have to try it when I get it stocked enough...

 

[rssjsb]

One thing you could do is put a cube of the "mousse" in a mesh/clip combination and let the fish nibble on it. Like this:

http://www.roggersreeffood.com/inde...ategory_id=25&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=53

 

[Zante]

It's not a bad idea, worth a try.

 

[Shaker nemo]

So did you try it? I'm thinking about going DIY for food in my 70 gallon.

 

[Zante]

I dropped in some and my fish loved it, I'm sure the corals enjoyed the finer particles.

Quite a bit was enjoyed by the skimmer as the powerheads pulverized it in the water when if finally reached them.

 

[7391eidde]

You should also add some Nori and Garlic Extreme

 

[Zante]

I have radically changed the recipe now, so I'm not sure it's good for marine fish.

1lb of raw fresh shrimp
1lb of trimmed beef heart
1lb of tilapia (or similar fish)
1lb of mixed veggies (including algae sheets)
2 cups of whey protein
2 tablespoons of spirulina
1 teaspoon of astaxanthin
couple of handfuls of flake/granules/dried rotifers/artemia/bloodworms/earthworms
garlic

I now mince the meat and fish and blend the veggies, and I use gelatine to bind the lot.

With this (and the weekly live food when the shop gets it fresh) the discus are spawning close to every week (in a community tank the wrigglers get eaten as soon as they start swimming)

As I said, I'm not sure this is any good for a marine tank. So far they are thriving on a meal of random frozen in the morning (squid, artemis, krill, mysys, etc...) and pellets in the evening.