my DIY food

[X24]

Well just came back from town with some knox clear unflavored gelatin and a random assortment of seafood and vegies so i think i'm going to be making a small batch of food to see how it works with my fish. If they like it i'll make small tweaks until i get a good recipe and make batches every couple of months.

So far this is what i have:

3/4 pound of catfish fillet ($1)
handfull of shell-on shrimp ($4 for 2 lbs, probably less then $1 worth)
1/2 a banana (cheap <$1)
small amount leftover bloodworms (cheap <$1)
1/2 lb frozen spinach ($2 a bag)
3 sachets of knox gelatin ($1.06 for 4 sachets)
garlic ($0.75)
V8 original ($0.78)
1 gallon zippered bags ($1.50)

grand total invested: around $10-12 and i have more then enough to make a couple more batches.

From my understanding you can just pretty much throw anything you would want your fish to eat into a blender together and blend it up, make the gelatin as directed with a little less water, combine over low heat, pour into bags, let cool and then freeze.

I'll add more to this when i finish making it and see if it turns out a success or if it was a complete failure

 

[X24]

here is the food cooling in 1 gallon zipper bags. I'm not sure if i used enough gelatin or not, but we will find out soon enough.

*edit: its hard to write on the bag while its still liquid, thats why my handwriting looks like a retarded 4 year old drew it with a crayon

 

[mcox3]

Whats the gelatin for? Couldnt you just freeze all that up without it?

Does V8 have any preservatives?

Looks great tho... Def. keep us updated

 

[X24]

Gelatin keeps it together when you put it in the tank. All the food i've close to liquified in the blender and the gelatin just binds it together so it won't foul water and fish can get actual bites out of it. V8 probably does have some perservatives in it, but nothing that can harm fish at all since i've seen it used numerous times before for fish food like this.

Only thing i really gathered from making this is make sure you make the gelatin right. Dissolve all the satches you are using in cool water and THEN pour the boiling water over the dissolved gelatin. If you dump the gelatin satchets into boiling water, they congeil right away and don't really dissolve into it very well.

*another edit after it cools, you do freeze the "flats" of fish food, just do it on a cookie sheet or a big cutting board so it freezes flat, then you can store it vertically in your freezer. To serve all you have to do is break off whatever sized chunk you want, hold it in the tank water to defrost it for a couple of seconds, and then let if go and your fish can break off pieces of it. If i did the recipe correctly it should sink.

 

[canucksfan1]

sounds like a sweet plan let usknow how well it works for ya

 

[X24]

Well i did a checkup on it while it was in the freezer. The gelatin has deffinately set as its like jello right now which is good, but it still needs a couples of hours to completely freeze before i can test it out. I'll give final results tonight after i feed my fish, as they are of course the final judges of the food.

So as of now full batch looks like:

1 pound of white fish fillet ~$1
1 pound of shellon shrimp ~$2
1 banana ~$0.20
3/4 lb frozen spinach ~$2
6 sachets of knox gelatin ~$2
garlic ~$0.75
2 V8 originals ~$1.50
1 gallon zippered bags ($1.50)
enough for around 8 flats of food (more then enough to last most fish keepers a couple months) and that works out to $10-15 depending on any extras added and $1.40 a flat of food.

This mix is high in protein because of the shrimp, whitefish and surprisingly gelatin, has veggies in the mix from spinach and V8 and is easy to add extra vitamins to via a product such as Ken's vitamin soak.

Basically you can make this fit any fishes need by substituting ingridients, all you have to keep is the ballpark amount and the gelatin. ie: if you are feeding to a herbivore substitute carrots, peas, broccoli or any other good cheap vegitables in for the shrimp and whitefish.

 

[nmrsco]

how do the fish like it? does it stick together in the water? it sounds like a great idea

 

[X24]

Wasn't frozen enough by their feeding time, so i'll have to give results in the morning.

 

[crashinc25]

Any update? I'm ancy to do this myself!!

 

[Nic]

not a bad idea....