DIY Food for CA's and SA's

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vinod_uthaiah

vinod_uthaiah

Plecostomus
MFK Member
May 17, 2013
891
196
61
India , Bangalore
Read through a dozen posts about the best food for healthy fish keeping.
Hikari was one popular brand readily available for me but was burning a big hole in my pocket.
Read lots of Best food Brand bashing and this is what Internet and I came up with .
Just reinventing the wheel and making my life easier on the DIY
Experts/Critics , I need your suggestion on what can be improved upon or what i have erred on.....

Ingredients:

Cleaned prawns/shrimps : 300 gms
Lamb heart – 2 pcs , 300 gms , fat removed
Multi Vitamintablets – 4
Spirulina Tablets – 4
Carotene tablets – 4
Peeled Garlic Cloves: 7-8
Gelatin- 8 teaspoons in 250 ml water(more may be used if a firmer consistency is desired)

Wash the prawns/shrimps and lamb heart thoroughly.
Drain the extra water .
Cut prawns and lamb heart to small pieces
Powder multi vitamin tablets.
Crush and make a fine paste of the peeled garlic.
Add the garlic paste , powdered multivitamin tablet , spirulina and carotene tablets to the meat mixture.
Add all the contents to the blender and make a fine paste.
Now add the dissolved unflavored gelatin to the paste and mix thoroughly.
Store in a container of your choice in the refrigerator and feed accordingly.
 
Run a google search and you'll get lots of recipes. Depending on your stock, you might need to add more veggies - peas, greens, pumpkin, carrots will all work. You can use bananas too - they act as a binding agent. Shrimp also really binds up the food, you may not need the gelatin.

Lamb hearts are fine, but it would likely be best if you stick with seafood - squid, salmon or any kind of saltwater fish, clams, mussels etc.

I would honestly only recommend this type of food, if your growing out juvies in a bare bottom tank with frequent water changes though. Food mixes are really messy to begin with & the small particles are going to be hard for large CAs to eat. Chunk food would be better - chunks of fish or shrimp, whole leaves of greens & peas. Also all those particles are going to get trapped in your substrate & rot. Even with frequent WCs, I think your water quality is going to go downhill fast.
 
DIY frozen food mixes, typically only show their value when used with growing out a spawn in a bare bottom tank. In this situation, you have lots of mouths to feed, no cracks in the substrate for food to get stuck in & frequent water changes. For larger fish, its just so much easier & cleaner to throw in some pellets or feed chunk raw food.
 
I make homemade frozen food, and recipe is a little different each time. My standby is a frozen Asian seafood mix that has mussels, octopus, squid, shrimp, and fish. Add some veggies, garlic, etc. and freeze. I personally really don't think it makes that much more of a mess than pellets, at least not if the fish are "chewing" the pellets. I actually like some to reach the ground because I have bottom feeders. For really big fish maybe just pulse the ingredients so that they are chopped into bite sized pieces.
 
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