Homemade fish food??

Hey all,

I've been lurking here for about a week to make sure this wasn't just
another group where everyone flames everyone else. I'm happy to say
that I haven't noticed a single derogatory post. Not to say there
haven't been any, I just haven't noticed them.

Now for the question. Is there a good site to research making my own
fish food? We have a 75g. freshwater tank with Tinfoil Barbs,
Australian Rainbows, Danios, Pink Gouramis, Blue Gouramis and Bala
Sharks; a 29g. that is all Mollies; and last is another 75g. with
Percula and Ocellaris Clowns, Yellow Tangs, Green Emperor Goby and
Green Chromis. There are also a few anemones and the cleaning crew of
snails and crabs.

We saw an article in one of the aquaria magazines about 6 months ago
that mentioned 2 recipes for making your own fish food. One used baby
food with additional self prepared ingredients and the other used
ingredients you had to chop, cut and puree yourself. My wife used these
recipes as a guideline and mixed up a wonderful batch of homebrew fish
food. I have to say that all of the fish get the same thing once a day
in the morning and love it better than the flake they get at night. The
colors really started to pop on the Rainbows and Danios. We can't get
the Mollies to stop breeding. We are starting to look for homes for the
Tinfoil Barbs and Mollies due to growth and overpopulation. The 2
Ocellaris Clowns started off with a much more muted color and are
really starting to turn bright orange after only a few weeks.

I'm basically looking for confirmation that the same food is right for
both the fresh and sal****er tanks. Another link for more recipes to
compare ingredients is always a plus.

Please let me know if you need more info to help make a decision.

BTW - I am in the Detroit, MI area. If anyone knows of a good home for
4 8-10" Tinfoil Barbs I would be happy to donate them to a worthy tank
before I give them to the LFS.

Enjoy,
Greg

http://www.melevsreef.com/food.html


wrote in message
ups.com...
Hey all,

I've been lurking here for about a week to make sure this wasn't just
another group where everyone flames everyone else. I'm happy to say
that I haven't noticed a single derogatory post. Not to say there
haven't been any, I just haven't noticed them.

Now for the question. Is there a good site to research making my own
fish food? We have a 75g. freshwater tank with Tinfoil Barbs,
Australian Rainbows, Danios, Pink Gouramis, Blue Gouramis and Bala
Sharks; a 29g. that is all Mollies; and last is another 75g. with
Percula and Ocellaris Clowns, Yellow Tangs, Green Emperor Goby and
Green Chromis. There are also a few anemones and the cleaning crew of
snails and crabs.

We saw an article in one of the aquaria magazines about 6 months ago
that mentioned 2 recipes for making your own fish food. One used baby
food with additional self prepared ingredients and the other used
ingredients you had to chop, cut and puree yourself. My wife used these
recipes as a guideline and mixed up a wonderful batch of homebrew fish
food. I have to say that all of the fish get the same thing once a day
in the morning and love it better than the flake they get at night. The
colors really started to pop on the Rainbows and Danios. We can't get
the Mollies to stop breeding. We are starting to look for homes for the
Tinfoil Barbs and Mollies due to growth and overpopulation. The 2
Ocellaris Clowns started off with a much more muted color and are
really starting to turn bright orange after only a few weeks.

I'm basically looking for confirmation that the same food is right for
both the fresh and sal****er tanks. Another link for more recipes to
compare ingredients is always a plus.

Please let me know if you need more info to help make a decision.

BTW - I am in the Detroit, MI area. If anyone knows of a good home for
4 8-10" Tinfoil Barbs I would be happy to donate them to a worthy tank
before I give them to the LFS.

Enjoy,
Greg

http://www.melevsreef.com/food.html
This is a very good site to learn about reef tanks. Mark Levinson (the owner
of the site) use to post on here and respond to viewer's problems.

On 13 Dec 2006 21:47:32 -0800, "
wrote:

Hey all,

I've been lurking here for about a week to make sure this wasn't just
another group where everyone flames everyone else. I'm happy to say
that I haven't noticed a single derogatory post. Not to say there
haven't been any, I just haven't noticed them.

Now for the question. Is there a good site to research making my own
fish food? We have a 75g. freshwater tank with Tinfoil Barbs,
Australian Rainbows, Danios, Pink Gouramis, Blue Gouramis and Bala
Sharks; a 29g. that is all Mollies; and last is another 75g. with
Percula and Ocellaris Clowns, Yellow Tangs, Green Emperor Goby and
Green Chromis. There are also a few anemones and the cleaning crew of
snails and crabs.

We saw an article in one of the aquaria magazines about 6 months ago
that mentioned 2 recipes for making your own fish food. One used baby
food with additional self prepared ingredients and the other used
ingredients you had to chop, cut and puree yourself. My wife used these
recipes as a guideline and mixed up a wonderful batch of homebrew fish
food. I have to say that all of the fish get the same thing once a day
in the morning and love it better than the flake they get at night. The
colors really started to pop on the Rainbows and Danios. We can't get
the Mollies to stop breeding. We are starting to look for homes for the
Tinfoil Barbs and Mollies due to growth and overpopulation. The 2
Ocellaris Clowns started off with a much more muted color and are
really starting to turn bright orange after only a few weeks.

I'm basically looking for confirmation that the same food is right for
both the fresh and sal****er tanks. Another link for more recipes to
compare ingredients is always a plus.

Please let me know if you need more info to help make a decision.

BTW - I am in the Detroit, MI area. If anyone knows of a good home for
4 8-10" Tinfoil Barbs I would be happy to donate them to a worthy tank
before I give them to the LFS.

Enjoy,
Greg

Hello Greg,

Surely you haven't got 8-10" tinfoil barbs, plus a load of other fish
in a 75-gallon tank ?
Anyway, any barbs you retain, and all your freshwater and marine fish
will appreciate more "greenstuff" in the mixture that Marc suggests.
ASDA (owned by Walmart) stock minced spinach in their frozen food
section. It is frozen into 2" round sections. Just put a few into a
pan and heat gently until steaming for a minute. This will evapourate
the water content and can then be added straight into the blender with
the other items.
Also, place 2 handsful of frozen peas into a pan and boil for a few
minutes. Don't boil until soft, as you simply need to remove the
skins. This is a PITA, as it takes a lot of time, but I don't think
the fish will find the skin edible, and it may produce a lot of
pollution. After they are "deshelled", add to food-processor with the
other mix.
You may also add a clove (NOT the whole bulb) of garlic to the
blender, as this may remove any intestinal worms from the fish.
Freshwater and marinefish seem to like it.
Chopped carrot can also be added to the blender.

Hope this helps. Regards, Fishnut.

wrote:

You may also add a clove (NOT the whole bulb) of garlic.

I don't mean this as a flame, but a question from a newbie. I thought
terrestrial food isn't has good as food derived from marine sources.
Have you had good luck with spinach, peas, and garlic?

--Kurt

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 10:04:40 -0500, KurtG
wrote:

wrote:

You may also add a clove (NOT the whole bulb) of garlic.

I don't mean this as a flame, but a question from a newbie. I thought
terrestrial food isn't has good as food derived from marine sources.
Have you had good luck with spinach, peas, and garlic?

--Kurt

Hello Kurt,

Terrestial food is probably not as appropriate for fish as water-based
plants, but they all eat it and appear to love it. Of course it is
minced up with prawns, bloodworms etc., so the taste is "disguised". I
do not feed lettuce etc. by itself, but many people do. I feel that
the main concern about feeding "supermarket" human food is whether
insecticides, fungicides etc. are still present. I intend to grow
spinach and other veg. organically next year.

Regards, Fishnut.

Fishnut,

Yes I HAD 4 8-10" (20 - 25cm) Tinfoil Barbs in that tank. I gave them
to the LFS this weekend. There just isn't enough money to buy/build
them another tank at the moment. I also have 1 10" (25cm) Bala shark
and 4 more 6-8" (15-20cm) balas. The remaining fish are all 4" (10cm)
or less. I know we are still WAY over the limit for fish in this tank.
I have a Fluval 404 canister (up to 100 gal. capacity) on it and an
undergravel with 2 powerheads to feed it. I'm not real happy with the
undergravel and have plans to remove it when we get the space for a
long weekend of rearrangement. Its either that or start filling a fish
only 30 gallon trash can while we update the tank.

The fish don't suffer at all. We perform weekly 50% water changes and
monitor water quality. The fish would have all died by now if we didn't
make sure they have clean conditions. This is also a semi-planted tank
so there is help with removing more waste.

We have even made ourselves known to the LFS as a rescue tank if they
encounter anyone who is desperate. We have a few smaller tanks we can
use in hospital/emergencies. That is how we got out largest Bala. He
had a 1.5 inch circle on one side that was missing scales when we got
him. The kids named him Thor. He is all better now and has been quite
happy in that tank.

The recipes we found included some green veggies, carrots, beef heart,
frozen fish, spirulina powder and a few other items that I can't recall
at the moment. Just grind/blend them all together and lay them flat in
ziploc freezer bags. Break them up and feed as necessary. The same
stuff goes in both tanks and the fish love it. My wife even breaks a
small piece off for the Chocolate Chip star and hand feeds him twice a
week. This way he leaves the anemones alone.

I'll have to add the clove of garlic to the next batch and see how they
like it.

Thanks to all for the tips and links.

Greg

wrote:
On 13 Dec 2006 21:47:32 -0800, "
wrote:

Hey all,

I've been lurking here for about a week to make sure this wasn't just
another group where everyone flames everyone else. I'm happy to say
that I haven't noticed a single derogatory post. Not to say there
haven't been any, I just haven't noticed them.

Now for the question. Is there a good site to research making my own
fish food? We have a 75g. freshwater tank with Tinfoil Barbs,
Australian Rainbows, Danios, Pink Gouramis, Blue Gouramis and Bala
Sharks; a 29g. that is all Mollies; and last is another 75g. with
Percula and Ocellaris Clowns, Yellow Tangs, Green Emperor Goby and
Green Chromis. There are also a few anemones and the cleaning crew of
snails and crabs.

We saw an article in one of the aquaria magazines about 6 months ago
that mentioned 2 recipes for making your own fish food. One used baby
food with additional self prepared ingredients and the other used
ingredients you had to chop, cut and puree yourself. My wife used these
recipes as a guideline and mixed up a wonderful batch of homebrew fish
food. I have to say that all of the fish get the same thing once a day
in the morning and love it better than the flake they get at night. The
colors really started to pop on the Rainbows and Danios. We can't get
the Mollies to stop breeding. We are starting to look for homes for the
Tinfoil Barbs and Mollies due to growth and overpopulation. The 2
Ocellaris Clowns started off with a much more muted color and are
really starting to turn bright orange after only a few weeks.

I'm basically looking for confirmation that the same food is right for
both the fresh and sal****er tanks. Another link for more recipes to
compare ingredients is always a plus.

Please let me know if you need more info to help make a decision.

BTW - I am in the Detroit, MI area. If anyone knows of a good home for
4 8-10" Tinfoil Barbs I would be happy to donate them to a worthy tank
before I give them to the LFS.

Enjoy,
Greg

Hello Greg,

Surely you haven't got 8-10" tinfoil barbs, plus a load of other fish
in a 75-gallon tank ?
Anyway, any barbs you retain, and all your freshwater and marine fish
will appreciate more "greenstuff" in the mixture that Marc suggests.
ASDA (owned by Walmart) stock minced spinach in their frozen food
section. It is frozen into 2" round sections. Just put a few into a
pan and heat gently until steaming for a minute. This will evapourate
the water content and can then be added straight into the blender with
the other items.
Also, place 2 handsful of frozen peas into a pan and boil for a few
minutes. Don't boil until soft, as you simply need to remove the
skins. This is a PITA, as it takes a lot of time, but I don't think
the fish will find the skin edible, and it may produce a lot of
pollution. After they are "deshelled", add to food-processor with the
other mix.
You may also add a clove (NOT the whole bulb) of garlic to the
blender, as this may remove any intestinal worms from the fish.
Freshwater and marinefish seem to like it.
Chopped carrot can also be added to the blender.

Hope this helps. Regards, Fishnut.

G'day mate.
There is lots of documents out there to help fish farmers.
Thats how I got into making my own food.
The recipes are easily scaled down, some links that would be worth reading
include.
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/FA/FA09700.pdf
http://aquanic.org/beginer/ornament/ornament.htm

It is one thing to have fish eat it.
It's another thing for it to be a viable staple.
Take your time, and if you run into trouble aproach the problem from the
mind of a small scale fish breeder.
By taking an aquaculture/hobbyist outlook on keeping fish you will see
there is a hell of a lot more stuff on the net about fish
than it ever seemed before

Have made hundreds of batches of food now
from snail crunches for puffers to artificial molluscs for ockys
cheap and.... when it works
very satisfieing

ALL HAIL THE MAGIC BULLET!!!

If in doubt throw in some spirulina powder
seems to be pretty popular

and if ya need ingredients
goto a lfs and read flake ingredients
heh

pellets, flakes and jellys are all
pretty darn easy to make
just need to know the science behind so ya don't trash nutrition making

Swarvegorilla







wrote in message
ups.com...
Fishnut,

Yes I HAD 4 8-10" (20 - 25cm) Tinfoil Barbs in that tank. I gave them
to the LFS this weekend. There just isn't enough money to buy/build
them another tank at the moment. I also have 1 10" (25cm) Bala shark
and 4 more 6-8" (15-20cm) balas. The remaining fish are all 4" (10cm)
or less. I know we are still WAY over the limit for fish in this tank.
I have a Fluval 404 canister (up to 100 gal. capacity) on it and an
undergravel with 2 powerheads to feed it. I'm not real happy with the
undergravel and have plans to remove it when we get the space for a
long weekend of rearrangement. Its either that or start filling a fish
only 30 gallon trash can while we update the tank.

The fish don't suffer at all. We perform weekly 50% water changes and
monitor water quality. The fish would have all died by now if we didn't
make sure they have clean conditions. This is also a semi-planted tank
so there is help with removing more waste.

We have even made ourselves known to the LFS as a rescue tank if they
encounter anyone who is desperate. We have a few smaller tanks we can
use in hospital/emergencies. That is how we got out largest Bala. He
had a 1.5 inch circle on one side that was missing scales when we got
him. The kids named him Thor. He is all better now and has been quite
happy in that tank.

The recipes we found included some green veggies, carrots, beef heart,
frozen fish, spirulina powder and a few other items that I can't recall
at the moment. Just grind/blend them all together and lay them flat in
ziploc freezer bags. Break them up and feed as necessary. The same
stuff goes in both tanks and the fish love it. My wife even breaks a
small piece off for the Chocolate Chip star and hand feeds him twice a
week. This way he leaves the anemones alone.

I'll have to add the clove of garlic to the next batch and see how they
like it.

Thanks to all for the tips and links.

Greg

wrote:
On 13 Dec 2006 21:47:32 -0800, "
wrote:

Hey all,

I've been lurking here for about a week to make sure this wasn't just
another group where everyone flames everyone else. I'm happy to say
that I haven't noticed a single derogatory post. Not to say there
haven't been any, I just haven't noticed them.

Now for the question. Is there a good site to research making my own
fish food? We have a 75g. freshwater tank with Tinfoil Barbs,
Australian Rainbows, Danios, Pink Gouramis, Blue Gouramis and Bala
Sharks; a 29g. that is all Mollies; and last is another 75g. with
Percula and Ocellaris Clowns, Yellow Tangs, Green Emperor Goby and
Green Chromis. There are also a few anemones and the cleaning crew of
snails and crabs.

We saw an article in one of the aquaria magazines about 6 months ago
that mentioned 2 recipes for making your own fish food. One used baby
food with additional self prepared ingredients and the other used
ingredients you had to chop, cut and puree yourself. My wife used these
recipes as a guideline and mixed up a wonderful batch of homebrew fish
food. I have to say that all of the fish get the same thing once a day
in the morning and love it better than the flake they get at night. The
colors really started to pop on the Rainbows and Danios. We can't get
the Mollies to stop breeding. We are starting to look for homes for the
Tinfoil Barbs and Mollies due to growth and overpopulation. The 2
Ocellaris Clowns started off with a much more muted color and are
really starting to turn bright orange after only a few weeks.

I'm basically looking for confirmation that the same food is right for
both the fresh and sal****er tanks. Another link for more recipes to
compare ingredients is always a plus.

Please let me know if you need more info to help make a decision.

BTW - I am in the Detroit, MI area. If anyone knows of a good home for
4 8-10" Tinfoil Barbs I would be happy to donate them to a worthy tank
before I give them to the LFS.

Enjoy,
Greg

Hello Greg,

Surely you haven't got 8-10" tinfoil barbs, plus a load of other fish
in a 75-gallon tank ?
Anyway, any barbs you retain, and all your freshwater and marine fish
will appreciate more "greenstuff" in the mixture that Marc suggests.
ASDA (owned by Walmart) stock minced spinach in their frozen food
section. It is frozen into 2" round sections. Just put a few into a
pan and heat gently until steaming for a minute. This will evapourate
the water content and can then be added straight into the blender with
the other items.
Also, place 2 handsful of frozen peas into a pan and boil for a few
minutes. Don't boil until soft, as you simply need to remove the
skins. This is a PITA, as it takes a lot of time, but I don't think
the fish will find the skin edible, and it may produce a lot of
pollution. After they are "deshelled", add to food-processor with the
other mix.
You may also add a clove (NOT the whole bulb) of garlic to the
blender, as this may remove any intestinal worms from the fish.
Freshwater and marinefish seem to like it.
Chopped carrot can also be added to the blender.

Hope this helps. Regards, Fishnut.