DIY Food - With Pictures (Don't open right before eating)

Hi All,

After using a friend's food that he made I started to notice my fish were healthier and fatter. I ran out of the food so I used his recipe as a starter and changed a few things. Since I only have a 75G, I made less food and the only difference was the color when done. His was a bit more red than mine. It was taste tested last night and the fish love it. I figured I'd toss up the recipe and pictures for reference...

Recipe:
14oz Gourmet Seafood Mix
~Shrimp
~Squid
~Mussel
~Octopus
~Crab Stick
4oz Hikari Mysis Shrimp
4oz Hikari Krill
1/2 pack SFB Angel and Butterfly food
1/2 pack Hikari Spirulina Brine
1oz SFB Silversides
2 rows of bloodworms
1/2oz Hijiki Dried Seaweed (Basically dried nori instead of roasted nori)
.2 oz approx Julien Sprung's Red Algae
Fresh Minced Garlic (I used the fresh garlic clove and minced it myself for freshness)
1TBS Reef Chilli
2TBS Cyclopeeze
dash of Selcon, VitaChem, Garlic Extreme, and Formula 1 Pellets

Pictures:
Ingredients:











Step 1: Blend the frozen seafood mix to a small enough size for the fish in your tank. Also grind up ot krill and mix it together with the garlic. Sample pic below (looks tasty huh ):


Step 2: Grind up the rest of the meaty and veggie ingredients and mix together in the bowl.

Step 3: Using RODI water, drain and rinse the food until the water you are draining out isn't brown anymore.

Step 4: Add the selcon, garlic, and food that is too small for the strainer and mix it together. You will have something like the below picture:


Step 5: Put about 1/2 to 3/4 cups of the food into a ziplock bag. Flatten the bag so it will be easy to store in the freezer. The end product should look like this:


The recipe above made 2 flats at about 1/4 inch thick. After frozen just break off a piece, thaw it out and feed. All the garlic and vitamins are already added so you don't need to add more.

Notes:
1- Make sure to blend to small enough for your fish. Too big and they can't eat it.

2- If you don't have a thin enough strainer, use the splatter guards they have at walmart for pans. They are thin enough to let the water out but still keep the food in.

3. When blending, add some RODI water to help the blender out. Mine was one with an ice chip function but it didn't work well without a little water to keep things moving in the blender.

Looks good I will have to try it. Where did you get that seafood mix in the first pic?

Asian Market frozen section.

I am still looking for an Asian Market. They closed ours in Duluth, so far the closest is in Fridley, ah well, the Cities is not too far away.

The one on 3rdish or 4th closed Nannook?

There is an Asian Market in Solway which is 7 miles west of Bemidji so if you come to the swap you could maybe run over there.

There is an asian market in Solway???? That seems like the most unlikely place for one.

Have you ever looked at the ingredient list for the crab sticks? I know it's not actually crab, just wondering if they put stuff into that we may not want in our systems.

I will indeed try to hit the one is Solway. Ranger, there was one for years on Superior St and 3 Ave East. Last year they moved to 1st St and 8th Ave East and got robbed over and over, so they just closed. I too wondered about the crab sticks, so far I am rotating Mysis, Brine, Formula One and a raw (frozen) diced shrimp. I only feed 1/4 of a cube once per day. They think they are starving to death, just ask them. haha

Can you suggest reading material? I have a very general book "Marine Aquaria & Miniature Reefs" by C.W. Emmens and "Reef Notes" book one by Julian Sprung, I have his "The Reef Aquarium" on request from the library. 543 pages should keep me busy for a week or so. And of course the bazillion reef blogs, 3 Reefs, Reef Central, MASNA, TCMAS (of them all I prefer ours, thank you for such a wonderful user friendly website!!)

Just made my first batch today. I should have left it a little chuckier, but oh well first time. Fish loved it. that seafood mix really surprised me at how inexspensive it was $3 a bag.