Most of my focus will be on water pollution. I have tested a variety of prepared foods both dry and frozen, and found somewhat alarming levels of phosphates in them. Obviously I don't recommend that reef keepers use any kind of dry food for feeding their fish, unless perhaps just as a snack. However, that isn't practical for many people.
The problem as I see it is that dry foods really don't offer the nutritional mass that fish need to thrive. I have seen this in my system, in which I have had a parasitic outbreak, and just by feeding good quality food, the fish were able to beat it and remain healthy to this day. If a hobbyist is feeding just dry food, I believe their fish will be much more likely to contract and succumb to disease or parasites.
Plus, making your own food can be financially rewarding as well.
So I am trying to generate awareness regarding this and encourage more people to not only make their own food, but also to test what they are putting in their tanks.
As far as my "refinements" go, I don't use powdered spirulina because the particles are too small and useless to the fish. If they get suspended, they will just pollute the tank or get skimmed out.
I also do not put in any clams or mussels. This is a personal preference in that they have a high waste to meat content, and I also don't want my fish getting a liking for clam meat.
I tend to go heavy on shrimp and scallops because they have an very high protein to weight ratio.
I also put in shredded nori (Kizami) which keeps its shape and is very easily eaten by fish. Instead of tearing it up and causing fragmentation, they suck it up like spaghetti.
Most of my refinement comes from soaking and rinsing the frozen foods in RO/DI water and then straining before adding to the food mixture. This bleeds off a LOT of excess nutrients. I know this seems a tad anally retentive, but the tests I have done show this to be a key source of phosphate, and I really don't want to be adding any of that on purpose.
I also change the partical size of the foods as my fish grow. using your basic recipe covers most fish fairly well, but I also include larger pieces for the larger fish, and even some that are too large so that the maroon clown can grab them and feed them to the anemones. This is virtually like target feeding without getting my hands in the tank.
Questions and comments are most welcome.
