Home Made Food/Diet?...

[jdamian13]

I recently purchased a Alli. Gar and I was feeding it live feeders but a friend mentioned they are not good if I want to keep a healthy fish. So now I've moved to floating pellets and he eats them w/out a problem.
Also, my friend mentioned that if I wanted to keep the Gar or any fish strong and healthy, that a friend of him had a recipe that includes beef liver, heart, chicken, etc, etc, and gelatin. You blend it together in a "blender" and freeze it in ice cube trays and feed him that instead. It sounds like a great idea, but I rarely see him and he does not know the recipe himself, and his friend is hard to contact.
Sooo... my question is....
Does anybody know of this, and if so, do you know of a recipe (include measurements of each) on how for me to make this to feed my gar and all my fish in general.
Cheers!

 

[tRiP]

I make my own food with a mixture of meaty stuff like beef heart, turkey heart/liver, shrimp, squid, pollock, mussels. I also use romain lettuce, broccoli, carrots, spinach and fish pellets. blend it all, mix in the gelatin, refrigerate until its like jello, score it with a knife then freeze. Here's one of the recipes I've used in the past click

I have not tried it w/ a gar yet as I just picked up a new florida today and my previous gar died before I started making my own food but my polypterus' love it (ornate and 2 senegals), the discus, angels, loaches, plecos all go crazy for it, will try it out on the gar later on once I see how he goes for the market shrimp etc.

 

[Polypterus]

I use a couple of different gel diets to supplement the feeding of my gar. In general I stay away from Bird or Mammal organs and meats but do frequently mix in Krill, shrimp and white fleshed fish or just whatever seafood is fresh and on sale just to "beef" the mix up a little.

I use a few different brands of prepared gel foods as a base. The benefit of using one of these comes from the fact you have a known base formula with essential vitamins and minerals already mixed in. While the cost seems at first to look higher it is actually cheaper than obtaining separate ingredients.

One is an Omnivore mix that is sold in Bulk from Aquatic eco-systems and is rather cheap. http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/listings.categories/ssid/264

I also use the base gel diet for specially formulated mixes for younger gars where some manipulation of vitamin and lipid fat content is useful.

Other versions are the various Mazuri gel diets.
In particular the Shark and ray formula, and fish analog gels.
http://www.mazuri.com/Home.asp?Products=2&Opening=2

Another joy of a product is Thiamin-E paste but maybe more on it's value later....

 

[jdamian13]

Thanks Guys! Keep it up! The more recipes and ideas the better.

-Cheers