Poll: Do you make your own fish food?

Do you make your own fish food? (If so, please share your recipe in the thread)

  • Yes - a combination of raw ingredients

    Votes: 33 11.0%
  • Yes - a hybrid/blend of various prepackaged foods

    Votes: 38 12.7%
  • No - I just use prepackaged foods

    Votes: 223 74.3%
  • Other

    Votes: 6 2.0%

  • Total voters
    300

bobman

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I make my own with a combo of fresh seafood and pellets with various plankton and algae sheets. Works out for basically free since once I am running low I just go buy some fish and shrimp for dinner and toss some in a food processor. So I can explain to the better half the food was free since it was what we were cooking anyway.
 

redfishbluefish

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Use to use Eric Borneman's recipe HERE, but I got lazy and simply mix a bag of Seafood Mix (from an oriental market) with a white fish and some nori....ground up in a food processor and packaged in a one gallon freezer bag, and then cut into cubes. Details HERE.I


I think the important thing is that I mix up the feeding schedule, where they just don't get the above blend....maybe once, at most twice, a week. Otherwise they get mysis, black worms, a shrimp blend, flakes or other packaged food.....variety.
 

uhgster1

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I feed my coral mysis and reef chile. I make a paste out of it. The water from the mysis as it melts with just enough tank water to keep it all together. I target feed the coral and it’s been working like a charm. My war coral has tripled in size in less than 4 months.
 

4FordFamily

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I’ve got a video about just that!

I should add I now only add Zoecon, selcon, and vita chem.
 

Surfzone

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Back when I lived in Charleston SC I would make my own from my bi-catch and what I would get from cleaning fish like roe sacks.
3 to 4 hand sized mullet or large manhaden (high in fats and oil) skin removed and chopped fine
1/2 lb fresh shrimp caught for bait usually
4 roe sacks from whittingfish (good eating pan fish)
Then I would throw in fresh muscles that where found on an oyster bed at low tide. In the winter I would use fresh sea algae that popped up in tide pools on the beaches and inlets in the summer I would just use nor I from the Asian market. Mix it all up put in to Ziploc bags and brake off what I needed.

My fish went nuts for it. So much so they would turn their nose up at any dry pellet and some frozen foods like brine shrimp
 

Zeal

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I started making my own stuff this week. But I used frozen cubes and defrost them and mix em.

Im adding Reef-Roids, Mysis, Brine, Seachem Zooplankton and Phytoplankton(10 drops each) and Garlic(2 drops), Aquaforst Fish V(1 drop) then top it off with some RO/DI water and sprinkle a bit more Reef-roids...

20180613_163405.jpg
 

paphater

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I'm a big fan of LRS but I feed heavy and it's just gotten too expensive. Once my current batch is up I plan on making my own. I'll be adding PE mysis and a few things like R.O.E and artic copepods but the rest should be from the Asian market, aside from black worms. Going to mix in selcon and vitachem so I don't have to soak it anymore.
 

vanpire

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LRS is great but it can get expensive if u have a lot fish and feed heavy. I make my own and the fish love it and are very healthy. Just basically what u get at the Asian markets but make sure u get the WILD seafood. Farmed seafood can have chemicals added. Homemade food is a third to a fourth less than LRS and my fish seems just as healthy and my fish love it as much. I used LRS before and was good but expensive. I can make a batch that lasts me six to eight months on a vacuum pack.
 

BigJohnny

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I like to make it now and again, albeit it's been awhile.

*A couple sheets of Red Marine algae
*Wild-caught white shrimp
*Clams
*Portions of a brick of frozen Cycolp-eeze FreezerBar
*Selcon
*Garlic Guard

~Put in mini food processor and done semi-fine, vacuum sealed.
Where do you get "Portions of a brick of frozen Cycolp-eeze FreezerBar" ?

Is that Argent cyclop-eeze?
 

srd93pgt

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Way cheaper to make your own plus you can fine tune it and know what your putting in your tank. I use PE mysis shrimp, white fish, squid, regular shrimp, clams, and oysters. I usually buy a frozen mix at the Chinese stores of the oysters, clams and squid. The rest I buy fresh from them as well. Last time I made it, spent $40 and made 8 gallon size freezer bags full. I flatten them out to a 1/4”. This lasted me 4-5 months. I have to make it again. Oh yeah I put a few sheets or nori, vitamin C and garlic.
 

vanpire

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I also use the very tops of the broccoli crowns and steamed spinach in addition to nori in my food. Tangs love it.

I am going to see if I can add black worms to mix next time.
 

BluewaterLa

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I use a mix of fresh seafood and prepared foods, frozen and pellet including some reef roids / reef chilie
When using fresh seafood I will prepare fresh caught Tuna from the Gulf for the high fat / oil content along with some other fish and fresh shrimp and or squid. I've used natural fish Roe and crab meat.
All of this gets chopped up well down to sizes needed for each critter to get whats needed and frozen for a minimum of 24 hours to ensure that any bacteria or parasite is no longer viable.
Miniature ice cube trays from bed bath and beyond cost me about 8 bucks for 3 trays get loaded with this mix, topped of with RODI water.
Some of them are made with a mixture of fresh seafoods, Roe if available, and other frozen foods normally purchased at LFS.

I also feed LRS, Frozen Mysis, Brine, Cyclopeze, Veggie pellets from Hikarri, Pellets from New life specturm and Mastic that all my fish and other critters go bananas for.
Corals that can actually eat meaty foods including anemones get chunky bits of fresh seafood once / twice a month
All corals get a thick smoothie drizzled onto them of Reef chilie, Reef Roids and Easy SPS from mastic twice a month.
Other than that they get to lap up the nutritional Poop from my fish and dissolved organics in my water column including Amino Acid additions.

My reef pets are spoiled and fat, corals get fairly spoiled as well although my tank still struggles being Nutrient Poor all the time so I have resorted to turning my skimmer OFF for days to Weeks at a time including using Mesh socks to allow flock to settle in the acrylic sump and Remote refugium.
Only Macro algae I have is a bit of Dragons Breath to help keep some cover other than small porous rock for my pods to keep up their end of the deal.

Who else is overly ill with this sickness to the point where the significant other starts to wonder if the Tank runs higher grocery bill than the household does ?? ;Woot
 

High pressure shells: Do you look for signs of stress in the invertebrates in your reef tank?

  • I regularly look for signs of invertebrate stress in my reef tank.

    Votes: 42 31.3%
  • I occasionally look for signs of invertebrate stress in my reef tank.

    Votes: 31 23.1%
  • I rarely look for signs of invertebrate stress in my reef tank.

    Votes: 27 20.1%
  • I never look for signs of invertebrate stress in my reef tank.

    Votes: 34 25.4%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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