home made coral food

[martym]

Does anyone make their own?, does it work well, how do you feed it?, will you share the recipe? :smile:
And, I can't find uncooked shrimp anywhere. Any suggestions? There is always tiger prawns, but never shrimp

[StirCrazy]

costco has bags of uncooked shrimp.. also if you go to the seafood section of safeway or save on foods ect.. hey should have uncooked shrimp on the ice.

Steve

[martym]

They always seem to be cooked. Or maybe they just look cooked. Don't have a costco card,but freind does :biggrin: thanks for the info.

[UnderWorldAquatics]

what kind of corals are you feeding??? brains? frogspawn? sps?
I use all varities of fresh seafood cut in chunks to feed the bigger corals, and the sps and other filter feeders love frezedried mysis shrimp ground into a powder

[dekay]

This must be a stupid question, but how exactly does a coral like frogspawn eat? I've yet to see any of my corals consume food (mysis, brine). The whole time I was thinking they're surviving off phytoplankton.

[martym]

Brain, SPS, and soft. Never tried freeze dried. Just can't see any nutrition staying in a srivled up piece of shrimp :confused: . After you grind it up do you soak it into water before feeding? I would think a syringe and spot feeding would work with this.

[martym]

I don't have a frogspawn (yet) but I would just place food onto it with a baster. Thats how I feed my sun and brain corals.

[UnderWorldAquatics]

freze dried has all the nutrition that fresh food has but without the water, water is the only thing taken away from the shrimp.

[kuatto]

I buy the 2lb bag of mixed seafood(clam,squid,mussels,shrimp)and blend in frozen bryne shrimp,nori and salt water.blend into fine paste,fill ziplock bags,lay flat and freeze.All the fish and my soft corals love it.Just disolve in some tank water and use baister.

Jim

[StirCrazy]

freeze dried is about the 4th best ways to preserve food. fresh has the most nutritional value, frozen is next, flash freezing, then freeze dried. the process of freeze drying destroys some ameno acids and proteens which is why it is not as nutritious as the others.

Steve

[martym]

kuatto, if it is blended fine enough for corals, do you just drop it into the tank frozen so the fish can eat it, or do you do different "blends"?

[MitchM]

This must be a stupid question, but how exactly does a coral like frogspawn eat? I've yet to see any of my corals consume food (mysis, brine). The whole time I was thinking they're surviving off phytoplankton.

Kinda like a miniature anemone. Depending on the species, small polyp stoney, large polyp stoney or soft corals (in general) will all take different sizes of food. I feed my euphyllia larger items like silversides.
Gently place a silverside in the tentacles, and the coral will grasp it and slowly pull it in and digest it.
Oppurtunistic feeders like shrimp will take the food right out of the coral, even as it's digesting, so make sure that you give some smaller pieces to the shrimp first.

Mitch

[UnderWorldAquatics]

freeze dried is about the 4th best ways to preserve food. fresh has the most nutritional value, frozen is next, flash freezing, then freeze dried. the process of freeze drying destroys some ameno acids and proteens which is why it is not as nutritious as the others.

Steve

if you want to get really technical and compare percentages that really wont make a substantial difference, then yes freze dried is not as good as frozen, and flash frozen comes before frozen in quality as flash freezing freezes the product before cell breakdown occurs, with regular freezing the cell walls break down and release alot of nutrition, in the form of oils. this is easily seen in mysis shrimp, when flash frozen they remain intack and the product is much cleaner, when frozen normaly, the cell walls break down and the mysis shrip get surrounded by a soup like oil, its great for feeding corals, but not the best for some aplications. when we flash freeze the mysis shrimp on the boat, they are alive in the bags on the trays and 60 seconds later they are flashfrozen and preserved.

[kuatto]

I usually blend it real fine(using the blender).My lion gets the whole pieces of sea food mix.I found that when I dropped in pieces of the "frozen mush",the fish ate most of it before it could reach the corals.By diluting it in some tank water and using a baister,the whole tank got blasted with food,everyone was happy :biggrin:
You can pretty much mix the way you want as long as the sea food is raw(or frozen)with no additives like spices and such.
Just make sure not to use the "good blender"(still hearing about that one! :mrgreen: )

Jim

[EmilyB]

Tiger prawns are shrimp, you can usually buy them thawed in single pieces or get a bag that will last forever.

I use a recipe that includes shellfish and krill as well.