Projects with Sam
5000 Club Member
View BadgesPartner Member 2024
Hospitality Award
Midwest Reefer
Rock Pool Reef Keepers
My Tank Thread
My Aquarium Showcase
great idea! I was thinking about something similar but never got past grating it; didn't think about cooling the catchment pan.Blended sea food is interesting. Wasn't sure if there's actually much for the fish to eat if it's liquified. But I have larger fish that could fit a whole fish in their belly, so blended microscopic food wouldn't be beneficial for them.
I use a cheese grater attachment on my Kitchen Aid mixer. I keep all sea food frozen and run it through the cheese grater. This keeps the food from liquifying and it comes out as flakes. There's two sizes if of graters. I run shrimp, scallops, and tuna (raw and frozen) through the cheese grater into disposable aluminum trays. I keep ice under the tray that receives said frozen food. Then manually tear up nori, I add 1-2 bottles of selcon, some aminos, a couple cap fulls of powdered food from BRS to add color to the food and the fish. And then I add some type of oyster feast, fish eggs, something small for smaller fish as well as Benepet coral food. I usually do a freeze dried food of some type. My fish seem to like freeze dried mysis. (a whole container).
I Then mix all ingreadents gently into the frozen food so as not to crush the freeze drived food. Then I use gallon freezer bags and gently place on a scale. A 1 gallon freezer bag easily holds 16 oz (1lb) of food and I flatten it into a flat pack and place in freezer immediately before it thaws too much.
I've done 6-8 lbs, up to 16 lbs of this at once in a 3-4 hour period.
Rod's food is $18 for 6 oz (plus shipping). I do mine for around $25 for 16 oz. I save easily $400-600 a year by spending 3-4 making my own food.
I use the gelatin to keep it together. the cube-trays I have are small enough some of my fish can eat a whole cube. Some of the cubes go through the MP40 for the smaller fish.