Do u mush?

[jason604]

So I normally just feed my dishes flake as it is very easy and fast but now that I have a larger tank I'm getting more different fishes that require meaty food such as a blue throat trigger and thinking about getting a copperband. So I would like to make my own fish food(mush)

My ingredient list is shelled frozen shrimp, semi thawed octopus, nori sheets, frozen blood worm, fresh oysters, couple cloves of diced garlic, mybe some type of saltwater frozen shrimp as well as a squeezed lemon to preserve it. Not sure about the quantity of each yet. Everything will be mixed in a food processor and will be flattened thin in a ziplock bag n put in freezer. So my question is.... Are these ingredients good enough or should I add something else as well? Also when u feed do u let it thaw out or just break a piece n throw it in ur tank for all ur fishes to pick at. I suspect that if I let it thaw with tank water before feeding it will very easily pollute my tank. Can anyone who make their own mush give me tips?

[rsisvixen]

I add Agar Agar and spirulina powder to mine. The Agar makes a gelatin sheet that I then cut into portions and freeze.

[jason604]

Originally Posted by rsisvixen

I add Agar Agar and spirulina powder to mine. The Agar makes a gelatin sheet that I then cut into portions and freeze.

Do u mix it with tank water n feed or u just drop in a cube n let them tear it apart?

[Timbits]

Some vitamins would be good too like vitachem or selcon

[Madreefer]

Use the search button. Theres some good recipes on there.
You have to be careful on the ingrediants you choose. It also has to be rinsed really good. Most stuff is full of phosphates. Ditch the lemon and get Garlic Guard or Garlic Extreme. Seriously do some research or you'll be posting another thread soon asking about GHA or cyano.

[Myka]

I get some ingredients from Florida Aqua Farms such as bulk gelatin, vitamin mix, and spirulina powder. You shouldn't use more than 8-10% squid as it is very fatty and you can cause health issues if they get too much. I use about 40% white shrimp and smaller portions each of wild Salmon, mussels/clams, roe (from Asian market). I also add Salmon oil (squeezed out of gel caps), Selcon, and garlic extract.

I don't think adding a squeezed lemon would help much. Freezing it is just fine. I bag mine in Ziplock sandwich bags, then put two of those into a Ziplock freezer bag. As long as you sqeeze all the air out of the bags you won't get freezer burn, and don't make more than you can use up in 6 months.

FWIW, I've used this recipe for several years and I don't have any phosphate issues. I don't think what you feed is as important as how much you feed when it comes to phosphate. It is true though that some ingredients do have significantly more phosphate in them, but these ingredients aren't necessarily avoidable. Phosphorus makes up protein, so higher protein foods have higher phosphate.

Here's some reading by Randy Holmes-Farley (2012) on phosphate sources. www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/3/chemistry

[whatcaneyedo]

I made two large batches several years ago but stopped because it was too much pollution. Blending/chopping the food up produced particle sizes that were too small for most of my fish to care about. The Tangs preferred to graze nori off of a clip over the course of a day and the CBB only wanted to eat Mysis and clam so the krill and seafood medley was largely passed over. The lion fish and eel I keep are also no good at finding food that is just dropped into the tank, they have to be hand fed with tongs. Perhaps if I had a tank larger than 120gal with many more smaller sized fish it would have worked. At the time I followed the advice of this article from 2008: Do-it-Yourself Frozen Food by Steven Pro http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-01/diy/index.php

I always thaw frozen foods before adding them to the tank. It isn't natural for most reef fish to feed from the water's surface and mine have never learnt to. Unless I shut off the return pump a block of frozen food would no doubt float on over to the overflow to the sump quite quickly.

[Masonjames]

I personally do not add any additives or extras. I just see it as extra junk. Raw whole foods only. But use what you like. I do like to add heavy on white fish meats as they are very rich and oily but others may want to reduce the amount of this. Shrimp are a good filler and binder but have a very high phospahte concentration in comparison to there nutritional value. Don't over do the shrimp. Can't get any fish to eat chucks of squid or octopus so I no longer add them. Basically you can just use what you can find at the time. Raw is always the best source but if your stuck with frozen you can always use that with no problems.

Good rule of thumb is to soak all raw foods in ice water mixed with a teaspoon of baking soda for an hour prior to proccessing. This will help remove the preservatives that are added which are extremely high in phospahtes. Rinse well and process. You want to proccess it so you have a good mix of food size to suit each mouth your needing to feeding.

I put into small sandwich sized ziplock bags and squish them flat to make a thin sheet. Freeze and feed. I don't rinse once it's been froze but a person can do so to remove some of the exrta juices if they like. I just break a piece off, thaw it in some tank water and dump it in.

It is a very rich food source however so the amount and frequency of feeding this food source will be differnt for everyone.

[rsisvixen]

Originally Posted by jason604

Do u mix it with tank water n feed or u just drop in a cube n let them tear it apart?

I just place a cube in the tank and let them work on it, it dissolves slowly thus the fish have a chance at eating it and I don't have a cloudy mess.
the CUC find it very quickly too and what the fish don't get to they will.

I use the Agar Agar as its a seaweed based gelatin thus has higher vitamins and minerals than standard gelatin.

[jason604]

I think the ajar ajar to bind the pieces together is a great idea so they don't break apart and polute the water before my fishes eat it. Isn't adding real garlic better than the ones in the bottle since I can mince it so fishes can actually eat pieces of it as well. I read that fresh water fishes should not be feed to saltwater fishes and that mussels clams and oysters contain too much heavy metals. Dunno how accurate these claims are. I was gonna get one of those mixed frozen raw seafood bags at the super market Cuz of the variety of different seafood in it. Was going to wash it good with water and table salt then dry and semi freeze it again n add to food processor with lots of garlic, flake, pellets and nori. Don't want to have so much juices come out if I don't freeze it a lil bit.