Fish Food Recipe - Homemade Rocks!

[Myka]

I decided to start making my own fish food again, so I figured I would share my latest recipe. It involves ZERO store bought fish foods, all are human grade foods bought at the seafood market.

6 parts large raw white shrimp (shelled)
1 part halibut (can be any saltwater fish...I just cut a corner off a filet I have for myself)
1 part squid tentacles (small squids)
1 part clam meat

I put this in a Lancaster Food Chopper ($7.99 at Canadian Tire) and minced it down to the size I want. To this I added:

1/2 part Capelin roe (can be any small saltwater roe)

Capelin roe (and many others used in sushi) are dyed, and he dye needs to be rinsed out. This takes some time, but the dye is water-based so it does all rinse out. Capelin roe is orange, but they add dye to make it fluorescent orange. This made about 10 ounces and to this I added:

3 mL Selcon concentrate
6 drops Kent Garlic Extreme

I mixed this up well, and then mixed a packet of Knox plain gelatin up with 1/4 cup boiling water. I let this cool to luke warm, and poured half of it in with the fish food.

This set up almost instantly. I put it in a freezer bag and rolled it out to about 1/4" thick. Now it's in the freezer. If you prefer cubes, you can push it into a piece of eggcrate and freeze it, but it's a bit of a pain to get out after you freeze it.

The GOOD NEWS...my fish all love it, and I have some darn picky fish.



Cost:
Shrimp $3.30
Squid $0.50
Halibut $1.00
Capelin roe $0.75
Clam $0.75

Total $6.30 for 10 ounces.

The Capelin roe is super high quality (it's called Masago and used for sushi) and more expensive than other roe, and the halibut is more expensive than cod. This mixture made 10 ounces and was WAY cheaper to make than to buy 8 ounces of PE Mysis. It is not greasy like PE Mysis either. This food is better because it is human grade, FRESH, is very clean, contains only saltwater ingredients, no waste, and the fish LOVE it. So, you can sub out cheaper food items and probably cut the cost in half even.

Here's the chopper I used...works really well, and is a perfect small size:
http://s7d5.scene7.com/is/image/CanadianTire/0431926_1?$medium$&defaultImage=image_na_EN

[DAVE]

Thanks for sharing. One question though.

Can the Capelin roe be found at most grocery stores?

[Myka]

No, it is the roe used in sushi so you have to go to a seafood market or asian market. You can use any saltwater roe, just rinsed it well because it is often dyed. I forgot to list clam, I put clam in there too.

[Wayne]

Excellent recipe! Great tip on the mini blender, my wife gets upset when I use hers :) I think I will head down to Canadian Tire next time I need to make food :razz:

[Madreefer]

What is the reason for the gelatin?

[Myka]

The gelatin is a binder. Keeps the small particles stuck to eachother.

[shootingstar]

Making your own food is very easy and not at all expensive.
I have been doing it for ages.
There are many variations on the recipe and i guess you just need to figure out what works for you and your critters.

A few variations:

I use an old blender, since I had one on hand.
I do like cubes so I freeze the mash in a large ziplock bag laid flat on a shelf in the freezer.
Gets me a large thin slab.
then I remove the slab, let it warm for a few minutes to just barely start to soften and chop into cubes with a large knife.
Back into zip lock bag and back into the freezer and the cubes don't stick together.

i don't use gelatin but I do add nori/dried algae to the mash

[Hustler]

Cant wait to try this out :)
For all my freshwater fish It was all prepared frozen or market fresh so Im looking forward to cubed preped foods
My asian fish market up here sells all kinds of stuff so Ill keep my eye out for it in bulk