Home Made Food FUN!

[Logzor]

Went to Jungle Jim's and bought all the meat fresh.

Thanks Reef Central for the idea!!

Ingredients:

1 lb Raw uncooked shrimp
.5 lb Fresh sea scallops
.25 lb Calamari
.5 lb Whole smelts
1/2 cup Freeze dried cyclopeze
1/2 cup Freeze dried krill
.5 bottle Vita-Chem
.5 bottle Chromoplex
2 Sheet Nori
1.5 Cups of RO/DI water

Total Cost: around $30.00. I spent $16.50 for all the fresh stuff. The krill, cyclopeze, and nori I got free from raffles and friends. I could have put more chromoplex and vita-chem in but it was what I had laying around. I forget how much full new bottles cost.

Here are some pics of the fun:

 

[shibumi]

Did you wife see you using the blender?

That looks nice. I guess I have to start making my own too ...

 

[BangkokMatt]

How much Absolut vodka dod you put in!

 

[Logzor]

Well....

I went out to my parents and borrowed their blender without telling them what I was going to use it for.

My girlfriend was the one taking the pictures

I did not dose the food with vodka! Or cookies for that matter!

 

[Logzor]

Was this a good overall mix of food for a mixed reef tank? I have a tang, clowns, and a diamond goby.

I am hoping that I churned the food up enough so that the sps can get food.

Any opinions on edits for the next time I need to make food (probably a year from now).

 

[Fuegofish777]

maybe some spirulina? sounds like a good mix to me. I would probably put in some selcon too just for good measure, but JMO.

 

[BangkokMatt]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11801923#post11801923 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Logzor
Was this a good overall mix of food for a mixed reef tank? I have a tang, clowns, and a diamond goby.


Any opinions on edits for the next time I need to make food (probably a year from now).

I always add garlic and algae sheets

 

[Roy G. Biv]

Dude, your a genius!! I was looking all over for mini ice cube trays. Thats great.

 

[oscarsdad608]

How easy is i to get the food out of the egg crate. I have seen other people use it and they said it was a pain in the rump.

 

[Logzor]

Well it has frozen overnight and I am going to try and but it out of the tray.

Feeding time is an hour from now...

It may be tough because I wanted to do the whole mixture at once. As you can see in the final picture, it is not completely leveled out to each cube. Otherwise I would have had to do two freezes.

My plan is to try to crack it like an ice cube tray. If that does not work I will just try to tear it apart or get the hammers out.

 

[Roy G. Biv]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11803225#post11803225 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Logzor

My plan is to try to crack it like an ice cube tray. If that does not work I will just try to tear it apart or get the hammers out.

Take lots of pictures!!

 

[Logzor]

Alright here are the post-freeze results!!

I first tried to break them out like an ice-cube tray, totally did not work.

Next (keep in mind everything is starting to thaw) I tried using a butter knife to poke them through with poor results.

I moved on, using a screw-driver, it was a bit more blunt at the end and that worked alright.

I broke the whole tray into about four pieces so they I could work on one while the rest stayed cold in the freezer.

I found that just using my thumbs and finger (once thawed enough) worked very well. I was able to get all the cubes out successfully. Make sure your hands are ready for this, mine came out a bit cut and the tips of my fingers are a bit scraped up.

Here are the pictures of the action:

 

[Logzor]

The smell is super hard to get off of your hands. Ive rubbed them three times in alcohol.

Overall, if you enjoy making stuff, it is worth it. Cost wise I think it makes a lot more sense than buying brine every week.

Also, my skimmer went INSANE went I put this stuff in there.

 

[shawnkfl]

i was going to try these http://www.fantes.com/ice_utensils.htm
scroll down to cubette mini ice cube trays. they look like they would be perfect for this and the price i right to try it. i think i'll give it a shot.

 

[Logzor]

Those look perfect!

My parents used to have some trays like that. It would be nice to have a few of those to use rather than using and throwing away the egg-crate. It was kind of a pain to use but better than having a giant brick of food.

 

[Jeff]

Very interesting thread. I'll stick to Rod's Food for the variety of types of food and the different sizes but yours looks great.

 

[Logzor]

Yeah I am going to experiment more the next time I make this. By that time my tank will have different needs probably.

Make any suggestions to this recipe though!

The clown fish went nuts over it. They turned into fiends.

 

[Roy G. Biv]

What would you differently next time you do it with eggcrate? I would imagine you would want to make the top a bit more flush with the top of eggcrate. That frozen food on the top had to make it a bit more difficult.

 

[Roy G. Biv]

I just counted... You should have around 680 cubes!!

It looks like you need more paper towels :bum:

 

[Project Reef]

Looks yummy. Just make sure you use Freezer safe ziplock bags, maybe even double bag them so that they won't get freezer burned.