The Perfect Fish Food

[IrnGynt]

At least for my Flowerhorn. Since he's now forsaken all forms of pellet food I'm going to have to attempt to make my own nutritionally balanced food.

Here's what I have in mind:

Main ingredients:

Atlantic Salmon
Bay Shrimp
Scallops

The rest:

either pure Spirulina (This Stuff) or GNC Maximum Greens
Garlic
Maybe VitaChem or Selcon

Since he's not a herbivore, I figure the supplements are more then sufficient to take care of his non-meat needs.

Blend it all together with Gelatin and see if he'll eat it.

What say the fish food gurus? Not sure how much of the supplements I should add to the batch. I'm shooting for 1lb of food per batch.

Spirulina or Maximum Greens? I'm undecided. I've read good stuff about Spirulina but Maximum Greens has it and a ton of other good items as well.

With all that, are VitaChem/Selcon even necessary?

Should I add any real veggies? I feel I have it covered with the sups.

 

[JakeH]

There's a lot of fiber in real veggies that he will probably miss. Pellets add this back in somehow, but I'm not sure how you would do that at home. I made some food for my loaches awhile back & put in a bunch of lettuce, cucumber, zucchini, and peas. They don't mind veggies, though... Maybe you could just chop them really fine?

 

[IrnGynt]

Good point! I might throw some spinach and peas in there. Both have fiber. Peas, I believe, are good for digestion.

The sups I mentioned are also loaded with fiber. Not sure if there's a difference between fresh and pill form.

It's all going into the blender btw.

Here's a great site I found for finding the nutritional value of different foods.

Spinach is good stuff.

 

[IrnGynt]

My first batch turned out great. Smells and looks like hell, but not only does my Flowerhorn love it, it also floats! Texture is like thick jello but airy enough that it floats.




Final ingredients:

1/2 lb wild salmon
1/4 lb wild shrimp w/shells
1/4 lb scallops
1/2 cup thawed frozen peas
1/2 cup of thawed frozen spinach

1 tsp spirulina powder
1 Max Greens tab
1 Calcium tab with magnesium
5 1000 mg garlic gel tabs (squirted the garlic oil into the mixture)

4 packets of gelatin
3 cups of water
1/2 cup of carrot juice concentrate

I pulverized the tabs into powder, added them to the top ingredients in the blender, added the carrot juice, then blended everything to a thick puree.

Started 1.5 cups to boil, then added the 4 gel packets to 1.5 cups of warm water and stirred it well. Once the other water began to boil, I added the gel mixture to it, took it off the burner, stirred well, then added it to the blender and pureed it again until everything was mixed well.

The mixture went into a big teflon coated pan and that went into the fridge for a few hours. Cuts nice and clean and is about the consistency of the chunks of fish I give him. Maybe a little firmer.

I'm so relieved that he's eating it. No more spitting out pellets. I can't believe I'm finished with the pellet battle!!!

I must give credit to THIS and THIS for inspiration and ideas.

Ideas for my next batch are broccoli, vitamin C tabs, and all these half empty cans of pellet food (all high quality stuff that I hate to see go to waste).

 

[vsprabhakar]

Exellent Preparation. I think it must be the complete food. How much dose will u give for an 5'' FH.

 

[IrnGynt]

Exellent Preparation. I think it must be the complete food. How much dose will u give for an 5'' FH.

Thanks!

As far as how much, I feed mine as much as he'll eat in 5 mins or so morning and evening. My guy is a monster @ 12" and less then a year old.

 

[IrnGynt]

The finished product:

I'd say that's about 4 months worth of food. Total cost for that batch was around $14.

One happy camper:

 

[H]-[H]

Wow.. what did you feed him, bro.. He got massive from the last time you posted pics of him..
Mine couldn't even compare in size although he will be 1 year old in 5 days..
& I'm surprised that your homemade recipe isn't really expensive.. It costs less than having to buy branded pellets in the long run..

 

[cjbarth]

Good job on the mix!!! I have something similar as well. I use prawns shell on with broccoli. carrots, pears, minced garlic from jar, and 100% pure spiriluna powder from Kensfish.com and a growth meal. Blend it all up add gelatin, bag it, and freeze!!!!

I use the veggies to bring out color in fish. They are natural color enhancers(they provide beta-carotene)- Greens bring out green, and carrots bring out orange and reds.

Reaaly inexpensive and when I make a batch it last for about 6 months on 6 tanks.

 

[IrnGynt]

@ H]-[H

I exaggerated on the size. He's a little over 10" (I measured him). I was feeding him Grand Sumo Red, Omega One Cichlid, and Almost Natural Cichlid in the morning and in the evening I was feeding him shrimp, salmon, tilapia, and the occasional earth worm. He was never really excited about the pellets but he ate them. A few days ago he started refusing all the pellets which led me to try making my own food.

@ cjbarth

Thanks! Next time I may add more carrot juice.