Here is the recipe I use. Got it from someone else on the board and the fish do love it.
Some pictures documenting my reef food making process carried out over the past weekend:
All the seafood are purchased the morning of making the reef food to ensure freshness.
Ingredients:Fresh seafood ingredients (clockwise from top-left):
• Mussels (1lb)
• Atlantic Cod (1/2lb)
• Wild caught shrimp (1lb) -bulk of food, good protein-to-waste ratio
• Littleneck Clams (8 pieces)
• Oysters (5 pieces)
• Squid body and tentacles (1/2lb)
Bay Scallops (1/2lb) - good protein-to-waste ratio
Frozen food:
• Plankton
• Nutramar Ova (100% prawn roe) - very highly rated, so good that even Mandarins eat them (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZEGItO4zZU) (No longer available so I substitute another Ova food)
• PE Mysis Shrimp
Dried food:
• Brown, Red and Green Seaweed (unroasted)
• Cyclopeeze (can't find dried so I us frozen)
Vitamins:
• Vita-Chem
• Kent Marine Garlic Xtreme ( I don't use the garlic. Mixed reviews on its benefits versus negatives for liver disease in fish)
• Selcon Concentrate
• The seafood are rinsed thoroughly and allowed to soak in RO water for 2hours in the fridge, before re-rinsing again. Seafood from supermarkets are often sprayed with phosphates to make it look fresh for longer, and thorough rinsing and soaking is required to get rid of most of it.
Rinsed, and soaked in RO water:
Sitting in the fridge for 2 hours while soaking:
A dedicated "reef-only" food processor for blending the food:
The seafood is chopped up slightly...
then mixed together and separated into three different batches, each of which will be blended for varying duration to allow for different food sizes so as to feed a wide range of reef habitants (corals, small fishes, larger fishes).
Resulting mix:
The entire pack of plankton, mysis shrimp and Nutramar Ova is allowed to thaw slightly and then blended:
•
Adding everything together! 2 sheets of brown, red and green nori are hand-crushed and added to the mix. Poured in 1/2 bottle of Selcon, 1/2 bottle of Vita-chem and an entire bottle of garlic extract. Stirred well to ensure even mixture:
Allowed to sit in the fridge for another 2 hours to allow the mixture/nori to soak in the nutrients:
Spread across mini ice-cube trays and freezed. Each of these tray makes 90 cubes, with each cube measuring 1/2" on all sides:
I fed my tank that night with a small chunk, and EVERYTHING went crazy. The feeding frenzy was extremely satisfying to watch. All in all, the experience is extremely rewarding from the idea of knowing exactly what you are feeding your tank. My tank is only 28 gallons, and I more than likely make too much reef food. Will definitely do this again though, once I figured out how to calm my wife down on the smell in the kitchen.
It is a word doc and the pictures don't come through for some reason.
