Interesting Fish Food Ideas

[noobgamers]

hey guys long story short i couldn't get hold of live food or frozen (due to parental objections to it) food and so now i make gelatine fish food as a supplementary food and was wondering what i could add to this at the moment i make a omnivorous one (shrimp,peas and cucumber) and a veggie one(cucumber peas and a few algae tablets) i was just wondering what would be viable options to add to them one idea i had was things like cress as i have some seeds which will inevitably not get used due to my family's vendetta against cress and also how quick they grow ty for any advice oh and i still need to update my signature so don't worry about it my stockings have changed allot
 

 

[Akasha72]

Hi,
where is Zante when we need him! He makes his own food for his discus in the same manner as you describe. He sent me a sample recently but my fish just didn't take to it.
I know he adds garlic and beef heart, spirulina too I think. I can't remember the rest of the ingredients. I know garlic is good for the fishes immune systems and that's why that goes in so adding some garlic to your next batch would be beneficial  

 

[noobgamers]

interesting ive heard about garlic ill try it next time and beef heart also as it seems meat components for homemade fish food are hard to find short of live food which my parents wouldnt like

 

[Akasha72]

I don't add live foods - I just don't trust that they arn't going to add something unwanted to my tank. I do add frozen food though at least 3 times a week. I keep them in my freezer tied up in food bags so there's no contamination to the human food - a large tupperware box would do the same though. I know some people get squeamish about keeping animal food in the same freezer as human food but if you keep it seperate in bags I don't see a problem

 

[noobgamers]

ive tried telling my parents all that but they don't cave in and let me have but then again i prefer gelatine foods as they're more personalized than live foods and thank you for the advice

 

[Akasha72]

no problem

 

[NickAu]

 

I don't add live foods - I just don't trust that they arn't going to add something unwanted to my tank.

We quarantine new fish and plants before putting them in the tank, Good point Akasha72. The only live food I give my betta are fresh caught Fruit Fly or fruit Fly maggot.

 

[RobRocksFishTank]

The only live food I give my betta are fresh caught Fruit Fly or fruit Fly maggot.
 

 
How do you catch the Fruit Flies? Those little buggers appear out of nowhere sometimes and I find them impossible to kill. I've never thought of using them as food for fish because they are so annoying. I just squish them. As to the maggots, are you purposely setting up something to create them, or do you have a naturally occurring supply somewhere?

 

[NickAu]

 
How do you catch the Fruit Flies? Those little boogers appear out of nowhere sometimes and I find them impossible to kill

 
Catch Hundreds of House Flies In Days With A Homemade Trap
https/youtu.be/f1SV4Tg_CZE
 
I also have a old bucket full of water behind the shed to breed wrigglers. Mosquito larva

 

[RobRocksFishTank]

That video was pretty disturbing. I've had a couple of bad experiences with house flies and their maggots. To this day, they still give me the willies.
 
Not that I like mosquitos, but making larvae and not allowing them to morph sounds like a good idea. I'm familiar enough with them to do that.
 
I'm still curious about the fruit flies and maggots, though.

Sorry for the thread hijack, noobgamers. I know you are looking for non-live alternatives but Nick got me going.
 
This is actually a very interesting topic and would love to see some more creative ways of making quality fish food.

 

[noobgamers]

That video was pretty disturbing. I've had a couple of bad experiences with house flies and their maggots. To this day, they still give me the willies.
 
Not hat I like mosquitos, but making larvae and not allowing them to morph sounds like a good idea. I'm familiar enough with them to do that.
 
I'm still curious about the fruit flies and maggots, though.

Sorry for the thread hijack, noobgamers. I know you are looking for non-live alternatives but Nick got me going.
 
This is actually a very interesting topic and would love to see some more creative ways of making quality fish food.

thank you im currently growing cress and msutard to go into fish food mixes from the feedback ive had it looks like ill be using more garlic ill definetely post some recipes if it goes well and i will be experimenting with new foods within reason (sorry angelfish no cheese and onion crisps for you)

 

[Zante]

Hi,
where is Zante when we need him! 

 
Hello, here I am!

I can give you the recipe for the food I make for my amazon tank. It has discus, sterbai corys, ancistrus and rummynose tetras. So far all except for the tetras have successfully bred in that tank (I did spot the tetras spawning though) and I'm convinced the food is quite a large part of that.
 
So, here goes:
500g of fish. I mix different kinds of fish, depending on what's available. The last batch was mostly cod because there was a special offer on cod. Got some for myself too

 
500g of shellfish. Mixed here too. The last batch was quite a lot of scallops and a bit of mussels to bring it up to 500g
 
500g of fresh, raw shrimp. It has to be raw because it helps a lot with binding the food and needs to be fresh because the food will theb be frozen (this obviously applies to all the food) This is the unshelled weight, so if you buy shelled shrimps buy 1kg and any leftovers you can use in a salad or something.
 
500g of fruit and veg. Mixed here too. The last batch was some peas, some spinach, a courgette and a banana. I always add a banana, it's good for potassium. The batch before last was mostly fruit, with mango, apples and pears.

The above is not blended, but passed through a meat grinder. I've never tried blending, so I don't know how it would turn out, but I do find that grinding leaves the food in larger "bits" that are easily eaten by the fish, while if the food was blended into a pulp it would more easily disperse into the water and pollute it more quickly.
 
The above is mixed with:
- two tablespoons salmon oil
- two tablespoons of spirulina
- a teaspoon of asthaxanthin
- finely chopped garlic or garlic extract
- a heaped cup of proteins
- vitamins
 
The proteins are the body building type, it brings up the protein content. Any will do as long as they're unsweetened, unflavoured and have at least 75% protein content. The vitamins I use are fish-specific vitamins I use to soak my reef food three times a week, but I've made it with vitamin pills for humans and they work just as well, just use an adult human's RDA for these quantities.
 
Once all is mixed I add a couple of handfuls of good quality flake and/or granules, and of a mix of dried artemia, bloodworm, daphnia, copepods, etc... They dry up the mix a bit without padding the food with non-nutritional crap.
 
At this point you can freeze it as it is, the shrimp will bind it quite well, but I add either some agar-agar or some pigskin gelatine (300 bloom) to bind it even more.
 
Once I'm ready to freeze I divide it into blocks that will last for six or seven meals (I feed twice a day) and freeze them separately.
You can freeze single meal quantities if you want, I decided to make larger blocks because this way I only have to defrost the food once every three or four days. It's still good when I get to the end of the block and I don't have to defrost every meal separately.


This is a recipe for fish that need lots of proteins. I'm sure you can adapt the quantities for more vegetarian fish, for example eliminating the cup of proteins and changing the fish and shellfish with veggies. Keep the shrimp though, as I said it's very good for binding.

 

[Akasha72]

yey! Zante found us. Cheers for that mate