If you want fat happy fish, make your own food.

[Mudzie]

http://rodsfood.com/herbivore.html

 

[Mudzie]

Have been using this in my reeftank for 2 years...
And everything does very well...
Shrimp, Scallop, Oyster, Clam, Squid, Octopus, Perch, Green Nori seaweed (porphyra sp), Red unroasted nori seaweed (porphyra sp), Seaweed, Mysis, Pacific plankton (Euphausia sp.) Krill, Brine shrimp, Frozen red cyclops, Fish eggs, Oyster eggs, Golden pearls (all sizes), Broccoli, carrot, Garlic, Baby Spinach, Selco, Astaxanthin (Haematococus pluvialis), Beta-meal (Dunalliella Salina), Spirulina, Freshly harvested rotifers, freshly hatched baby brine shrimp.

 

[Gregcoyote]

Now that's quite a list.

 

[woody390]

Does it matter if the food is pre cooked? I'm guessing I does but thought I'd check

 

[Mudzie]

It is best to use food stuff raw with no preservatives..

 

[woody390]

Thought so only stuff I found at last supermarket was pre cooked I'll keep looking

 

[sanchezkk]

They are small. Looks like the same squid usd for bait. But fresh though. They are maybe about 5 inches. Funny you mention the squid part. My Chevron Tang bit off a piece of squid that was a little bigger than it could handle. He didn't give up and it got caught on his bristleteeth and swayed from the side of his mouth for a day. Serves him right. He eventually took care of it, but he was everyone's best friend for a day with 3 fish chasing him as if they were playing a game of "Keep Away". Too funny. Had to be there.

That would have been a funny sight!

 

[dlsrks]

This has been covered before, so for the newbies;

As Chef Ramsey points out, it is cheaper, tastes better and is healthier to make your own foods. This includes fish foods. I have been doing it for a while now and I can tell you it works. No disease, much less fighting and pretty fat fish. My tangs are all very meaty.

Buy nori sheets from a Chinese food store or on Amazon. Used for sushi, it is cheap and they love it. You can even grind some of this up and add to the below;

Make the following, feel free to use alternate ingredients, as long as its seafood. No chicken, or roast beef...

Can of oysters, drain
Some white fish, or salmon even can work, no bones
Some prawns
Some shrimp, cooked or uncooked.
Scallops
Add vitamins and some garlic extract and some RO/DI water

Let sit in refrigerator overnight to absorb the vitamins and garlic.

Then put into food processor, or mince with knife into a mash. Put the mash in some cheese cloth, or clean dish towel and squeeze as much water as you can to make a kind of fish dough. Divide this up into freezer bags and smash into flat sheets before freezing.

The fish will try to kill each other to get to this mixture.

How much does this make? I have 3 tanks. Would want have enough for a monthly batch.

 

[Gregcoyote]

This makes about 6 standard sized zip lock bags worth.

 

[dlsrks]

How much does this make? I have 3 tanks. Would want have enough for a monthly batch.

Thanks. Been having trouble with phosphates in all the tanks. Think I'm going to stop buying frozen food from store. It's probably the culprit.

 

[Gregcoyote]

It might be, usually you need to drain off quite a bit of liquids first. It's why I try to keep mine a bit drier before freezing. High protein foods will make phosphates, so maybe reducing the feeding schedule might help.

 

[Crystal A]

Reviving an old thread here but well I did it. Made my own fish food and let me tell you they went NUTS! I have never seen them that excited to eat before. Thanks for starting this thread and passing along the idea. Now I'm gonna have fat happy fish. Lol

 

[Crystal A]

Oh and I reused old packs to frezze in handy dandy cube size portions.

 

[emerald76]

I may have to do this for my guppies. Spoiled little brats they are.

 

[Reyjgd]

I love it too I after seen the thread I decided to go out and doit I spend about 30 - 40 dollars worth of stuffs end up throwing most of it out cuz the blender didnt blend it small enoight anyways i made about 5 large sandwish bags its been almost a year since I bought food at the local pet store ... and I just opened my 4th bag .... fyi I feed mines everyday jaja I recomend this ... it will have ur fishes happy and it will defenetly save u some money

 

[Gregcoyote]

Instead of the blender, try chopping the stuff up. It works better as you can control the size of the pieces.

 

[Sniperhank]

My question is, where do you get the vitamins for your mixture? Any suggestions on something commonly found at say, walmart or a chain grocery store?

 

[Reyjgd]

My question is, where do you get the vitamins for your mixture? Any suggestions on something commonly found at say, walmart or a chain grocery store?

I threw some alge sheets and the concentrated garlic formula they sell at the pet store

 

[Gregcoyote]

I add garlic extract and Vita-Chem.

 

[Sniperhank]

So, some of my Fuel would work.