Do it yourself food article

[wperiam]

I read your article on 'do-it-yourself' food and am interested to give this a try (in Brazil where I live the aquarium shops offer little in the way of frozen food preparations).

However, I have a doubt. Whenever I have read similar descriptions of recipes for food for various freshwater species, I have been concerned that the resulting food, when defrosted and placed in the aquarium, would disintegrate into a fine cloud of food particles with few food chunks capable of being eaten by the fish, with the result being pollution of the aquarium.

Is this a problem without using some kind of binding agent in the recipe? Or is the solution to only blend the ingredients a little?

I would appreciate your clarification.

Will Periam

[jcpatella]

Great article. I currently have a DIY food mix that I'm using. It isn't the best, but I know it's better than the same old pellets everyday. I'm probably going to toss my mix and use the ingredients in this article - they seem a little more all-inclusive.

wperiam has a good point, though. Do you blend it frozen so it stays chunky or do you let it defrost first? I just looked it up and the whole mix probably costs between $50 and $60. It may seem like a lot at first, but it should last for weeks, if not months!

Great article.

[Rekonn]

The article was a good short intro on DIY food. But I was hoping for more. There wasn't any data, no criteria to select one food over another for your mix. There were a couple sentences on customizing a recipe depending on the type of fish, but that was it. It reinforces a 'more ingredients is better' mentality that is not necessarily true. I believe a few carefully selected ingredients as recommended in this thread would be better.

[mightyreefer]

I've been told to chop off the heads and tails of Silversides before feeding them to my fish. Is this common practice or necessary? Your article didn't mention it.

Thanks.

[Steven Pro]

Originally posted by wperiam
I read your article on 'do-it-yourself' food and am interested to give this a try (in Brazil where I live the aquarium shops offer little in the way of frozen food preparations).

However, I have a doubt. Whenever I have read similar descriptions of recipes for food for various freshwater species, I have been concerned that the resulting food, when defrosted and placed in the aquarium, would disintegrate into a fine cloud of food particles with few food chunks capable of being eaten by the fish, with the result being pollution of the aquarium.

Is this a problem without using some kind of binding agent in the recipe? Or is the solution to only blend the ingredients a little?

In my experience, the nori seems to work as a good binding agent and addition things (such as gelatin) are not necessary.

[Steven Pro]

Originally posted by jcpatella
wperiam has a good point, though. Do you blend it frozen so it stays chunky or do you let it defrost first? I just looked it up and the whole mix probably costs between $50 and $60. It may seem like a lot at first, but it should last for weeks, if not months!

It is going to depend on the size of your aquarium and the number of fish, but this recipe lasts for quite some time.

[Steven Pro]

Originally posted by Rekonn
The article was a good short intro on DIY food. But I was hoping for more. There wasn't any data, no criteria to select one food over another for your mix. There were a couple sentences on customizing a recipe depending on the type of fish, but that was it. It reinforces a 'more ingredients is better' mentality that is not necessarily true. I believe a few carefully selected ingredients as recommended in this thread would be better.

I took a brief look at that thread, but from my quick review I can say that I don't accept the premise that more protein per pound is necessarily best. I also don't agree with feeding scallops and oysters to animals that would not naturally eat those animals. I would suggest you take a look at fishbase.org to review the gut content analysis of the fish you wish to keep and then tailor their formula accordingly.

[jnarowe]

I will be hosting a food making party for the January Meeting of the PSAS...One of the keys to this discussion will be how to make and use food while putting the least amount of pollution into the tank. I have tested many foods both dry and frozen, and found very high levels of phosphate and nitrates in most of them. I soak any "brined" items in RO/DI and then rinse them to eliminate as much pollution as possible.

Here’s how I do it. This is essentially Marc’s (melev) recipe and method with some minor changes:

All items are RAW!! I don't use every item listed below in every batch, and the first 5 are not needed to save cost.

Frozen Cyclops (optional)
Frozen Mysid (optional)
Frozen Plankton (optional)
Frozen Brine (optional)
Frozen Formula 2 (optional)
Frozen Mixed Seafood (Asian store, clams & mussels removed)
Frozen Shrimp
Frozen Krill (optional)
Vitamins (Vita-Chem, H2O Life Line, Selcon)
Garlic (Garlic Guard or fresh minced)
Shredded Nori (Kizami)
Spirulina (large pellets)
Fresh Seafood (If Available)

I chop the mixed seafood and shrimp. I soak and rinse all frozen items with RO/DI water and allow it to drain thoroughly. Then I mix all ingredients together and ladle into Zip-Loc bags, flatten, and freeze.

When I feed, I thaw in tank water with more vitamins, shredded nori, and drain through a fine shrimp net. Then I place in bowl and dip the bowl in the tank slowly feeding while the fish do their thing.

Discussion:

I do not like putting in pellet foods or powdered spirulina. The whole reason why I make this food is to stay away from pellet and flake food which incorporates too much phosphate and nitrate, and has very little solid food value.

The primary issue is that flake and pellet foods aren't real food in a sense. They cost a fortune per ounce vs. using frozen foods, regardless of whether you are using "people" food or fish food.

Plus you know exactly what your fish are getting and you can tweak it with vitamins you are comfortable with. Volume wise I use about 60 - 70% "human" food in my mix.

I also feel that the cyclops may be more of a risk that it is worth, just because of the particle size. It's extremely difficult to rinse and strain it, and I feel the pollution it causes may be fairly high because of that.

The Garlic is optional of course, and that is a topic all its own. Sherman is always ragging on me for using garlic, just as I rag on everyone else for putting lettuce, broccoli etc. in their tanks. And he's probably right, but it as been my experience that it has helped my fish stay strong in the face of disease. It "may" help boost the immune system but whether that will ever be proved is doubtful. One thing is clear to anyone who has farted in the shower, scents travel fast in water, and it seems to really attract the fish to the food.

One of the most important parts of feeding IMO, is straining the food once you have thawed it. I had for some oddball reason forgotten to do this for consecutive months, and I saw a drastic change in my nuisance algae and water quality. I can only assume it would be MUCH worse in a smaller system.

Another thing to note is that I also remove clams and mussels from the mixed seafood I get at the Asian store. The reason for this is that I don't want my fish getting a taste for clams, and both clams and mussels have a high waste to protein content. They are practically half crap.

On the flip side, shrimp and scallops are extremely high in protein and virtually zero waste product. They have a very high protein to weight ratio, so I tend to go heavy on those two. Scallops are expensive, but shrimp can be found rather cheaply at Asian stores.

And I do not turn off any pumps. I know most reef keepers do, but I like for the food to remain in the water column rather than sink, and I like all the fish to get an equal chance at the food. By turning off the pumps, the food stays in one location, and then the biggest bullies get the bulk of it.

And I also usually have animals in my overflow to get anything that makes it all the way there. This includes a nice gaggle of aiptasia and currently 2 neon blue gobies.

[Steven Pro]

You all might enjoy Dr. Toonen articles on marine fish nutrition:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...003/invert.htm

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...004/invert.htm

[davidbe]

Just so you know, agar-agar is a good alternative to gelatine and can be found in most asian grocery stores. Agar-agar is used as a gelifying agent in ice cream and come from marine algae so no bad smell and its safe for a reef.

[Steven Pro]

Originally posted by davidbe
Just so you know, agar-agar is a good alternative to gelatine and can be found in most asian grocery stores. Agar-agar is used as a gelifying agent in ice cream and come from marine algae so no bad smell and its safe for a reef.

Thanks for the tip! Next time I go to the Asian market, I will have to ask for it.

[jnarowe]

Originally posted by Steven Pro
You all might enjoy Dr. Toonen articles on marine fish nutrition:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...003/invert.htm

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issu...004/invert.htm

Thank you for the links. It is very interesting to how many differing opinions there are on what to feed fish vs. corals etc. and I find any article on the subject an important part of my knowledge base.

I don't really buy into dosing phytoplankton as many reef keepers encourage, and based on my testing, I have some doubts about the cost/benefit ratio of cyclops or cyclop-eeze.

And BTW, I see no reason to use any kind of binder in frozen fish food, nor the need to make cubes. I find rolling it out in a Zip-Loc bag very easy and breaking off a piece just as easy. I suppose if an aquarist wants to always feed the same amount, that small cubes would be beneficial, but I like to feed varying amounts at each feeding time.

Did you speak to the PSAS recently? I seem to recall a post about you in one of their threads.

[alittlephishy]

jnarowe - I like some of your thoughts and ideas and plan on using some of those.
I was planning on making a large batch and cube it. After it's frozen I'm going to vacuum bag it into smaller portions to keep it as fresh as possible.

[jnarowe]

I would be interested how the cubes turn out. I have a horrible time when my bags are rolled out too thick. My next next project is to build an automatic dispenser for frozen foods.

[Steven Pro]

Originally posted by jnarowe
Did you speak to the PSAS recently? I seem to recall a post about you in one of their threads.

PSAS is Puget Sound, right? No, I have not been there. I have been asked a couple of times, but always had scheduling conflicts.

[jnarowe]

hmmmm...well, must be the slight retardation on my end!