When i am finished i will post my full recipe, all ingredients and accessories i needed and had to buy, and my time and effort and amount it yielded. you can make as much as you want double , triple batch to save time and just freeze it ... by far its gonna be more cost effective. As for my troubles thats what ill be filling you in on ..
Make your own Food (cichlid)
- Thread starter CICHLIDFAN210
- Start date
it can be cost effective if you also eat a lot of seafood, thus the fish are only going to have your scraps share with you. that way you are not doing any extra purchases other than the vitamins.
and besides it's fun.
and besides it's fun.
I made a similar thing to be used as Ray food
It can be found under "fire medics DIY ray food"
There was some good trial and error in the thread about amounts of moisture and gelatin you may want to read through it before you start
It can be found under "fire medics DIY ray food"
There was some good trial and error in the thread about amounts of moisture and gelatin you may want to read through it before you start
ok guys the Cichlid food has been made... took about one hour for this recipe.
1 lb. - Prawns, heads, tails, shells and all
1 lb. - Green Peas
1/2 lb. - Brocolli
2 tsp. - Spirulina Powder
5 packs Knox Gelatin - (4 packs to a box)
1 tsp. Kent Marine Zoe
1 tsp. Vita-Chem Freshwater.
First i thawed the prawns, peas, and brocolli
Then i placed half the prawns, peas, brocolli, 1 tsp Spirulina Powder, and half of each vitamin in the blender and mixed till all was pureed. I did have to add some water, which thins it but wont affect the process. Then i repeated this again with the balance of the ingredients and placed the pureed mix in a bowl.
To disolve the gelatin i place 1-1/2 cups of water in a large pot on LOW, and also another 1-1/2 cups of water i boiled. I added the 5 packs of gelatin to the cold water on low and stirred them until all the crystals were dissolved. Once the water was boiling i added it to my pot on low and stirred thouroughly.
Then i slowly added the mixture to the warm gelatin, scoop by scoop slowly mixing it all together until all of the mixture was dissolved into the gelatin (keep the heat on LOW).
Once the mixture was ready i placed it in mini ice cube trays - 10 to be exact - using a ladel and a butter knife to spread it throughout the tray evenly. Then i placed the trays in the fridge for 3 hours, then moved them to the freezer where tomorrow ill be experimenting removing the cichlid cubes from the trays.
Not sure what i forgot.. lol i had other suggestions to shell the shrimp, but my blender pureed them and you couldnt tell they were in the mix.. im sure they have nutritional value? Also someone mentioned adding spinach or a romaine lettuce to the puree. As for vitamins fish oil and garlic was mentioned.
I got my prawns at a wholesale club (BJ's or Sams) for $5 a pound...
Spirulina Powder - ordered from www.nutsonline.com - $9.99 lb plus shipping... this is enough to last you for a hundred batches of food
mini ice cube trays (1244/2 cubette trays) - www.housewaresandbeyond.com - $3.19 per 2 pack - i ordered 5 packs - 10 trays - $26.73 shipping included
Kent Marine Zoe & Vita Chem Freshwater - www.thatpetplace.com - these 2 bottles will last for a hundred batches like the spirulina powder.
So once you make your initial investment. Next time a pound of shrimp, a bag of peas, and a bag of brocolli will cost me $7.00 . not bad compared to what you get charged for frozen food a your local pet store. My next posts will be my gradual transition into seeing how my cichlids, Piranha, and Pacu like my homestyle cooking...
Thnaks for all your help, comments and questions !!
1 lb. - Prawns, heads, tails, shells and all
1 lb. - Green Peas
1/2 lb. - Brocolli
2 tsp. - Spirulina Powder
5 packs Knox Gelatin - (4 packs to a box)
1 tsp. Kent Marine Zoe
1 tsp. Vita-Chem Freshwater.
First i thawed the prawns, peas, and brocolli
Then i placed half the prawns, peas, brocolli, 1 tsp Spirulina Powder, and half of each vitamin in the blender and mixed till all was pureed. I did have to add some water, which thins it but wont affect the process. Then i repeated this again with the balance of the ingredients and placed the pureed mix in a bowl.
To disolve the gelatin i place 1-1/2 cups of water in a large pot on LOW, and also another 1-1/2 cups of water i boiled. I added the 5 packs of gelatin to the cold water on low and stirred them until all the crystals were dissolved. Once the water was boiling i added it to my pot on low and stirred thouroughly.
Then i slowly added the mixture to the warm gelatin, scoop by scoop slowly mixing it all together until all of the mixture was dissolved into the gelatin (keep the heat on LOW).
Once the mixture was ready i placed it in mini ice cube trays - 10 to be exact - using a ladel and a butter knife to spread it throughout the tray evenly. Then i placed the trays in the fridge for 3 hours, then moved them to the freezer where tomorrow ill be experimenting removing the cichlid cubes from the trays.
Not sure what i forgot.. lol i had other suggestions to shell the shrimp, but my blender pureed them and you couldnt tell they were in the mix.. im sure they have nutritional value? Also someone mentioned adding spinach or a romaine lettuce to the puree. As for vitamins fish oil and garlic was mentioned.
I got my prawns at a wholesale club (BJ's or Sams) for $5 a pound...
Spirulina Powder - ordered from www.nutsonline.com - $9.99 lb plus shipping... this is enough to last you for a hundred batches of food
mini ice cube trays (1244/2 cubette trays) - www.housewaresandbeyond.com - $3.19 per 2 pack - i ordered 5 packs - 10 trays - $26.73 shipping included
Kent Marine Zoe & Vita Chem Freshwater - www.thatpetplace.com - these 2 bottles will last for a hundred batches like the spirulina powder.
So once you make your initial investment. Next time a pound of shrimp, a bag of peas, and a bag of brocolli will cost me $7.00 . not bad compared to what you get charged for frozen food a your local pet store. My next posts will be my gradual transition into seeing how my cichlids, Piranha, and Pacu like my homestyle cooking...
Thnaks for all your help, comments and questions !!
Big day today. We will be seeing how these cubes are removed from the ice cube trays. If they remove easily ill be storing them in zip-loc freezer sandwich bags. The process was easy, did not smell fishy like i thought. Compared to buying the frozen pet store food its a hands down cheaper (minus initial investment) and not very time consuming.
You can also try using agar. There's a thread over on AC where they mix powdered agar with other foods(ex. powdered krill, spinach, calcium, etc) with water and make some sort of gel. I bought agar at my supermarket and dried my own veggies with a convection oven, but I can't seem to get the consistency right. My agar comes in strips rather than powder so measurements are different. The gel(placed right into tank w/out freezing) seems to be too stiff for the fish to eat. The corys swarm over it but I don't see them taking bites out of it. The MTS really seem to love it though
Looking to make my own fish food, but was thinking of drying instead of freezing. I don't think the wife would go well finding some fish food in the freezer in the ice cube tray,
ok i tried harvesting the cubes from the ice cube tray. #1 they will not come out frozen #2 thawed out and tried to remove to find out the gelatin never took. Its like i dumped the straight puree into the ice cube trays. so i figured taste test for the fish... Well the fish went crazy. Doesnt look like it amounted to any amount of food. But it clouded the water. Obviously my puree was too fine. this tells me deshell shrimp next time. i do have one more pound of prawns i will deshell and leave them in chunks instead of pureeing ???? HELP
My wife makes the same food only she adds garlic the fish love it and it can be fed to fry. she leaves the whole thing a cookie sheet half freezes it then cuts into cubes and seperates them a bit freezes solid and put cubes in baggies works great hope your fish enjoy it as much as ours do.
