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Howdy!
For more than 2 years I have fed my fish using Rod's Food Herbivore Blend. Despite the high price I noticed this is the best value because there a lot of "meet" and not that much water. A small piece contains a lot of food so small package lasts me for 1-2 months. Couple weeks ago my LFS told me the price skyrocketed like 60% up so I bought mysis shrimp from Hikari but honestly I don't like it that much - too small for my fish. So I decided to do what I wanted to do which is my own frozen food.
In this thread I would like to share my experience with my first frozen food. I didn't do much investigation about exact amounts or what brings what. I read 2 threads and I combined list of ingredients and I purchased what I had locally without looking for weeks exact, very expensive ingredient. I live near Raleigh, NC and we have a Grand Asia Market nearby. I have no idea if this story has a good selection of stuff since I don't have anything to compare but most of ingredients were available. I try to run my tank on budget so picked mostly frozen stuff. They had many nice fish I've only seen during scuba diving but they were on a pricey side so this is what I purchased:
1) Bay Scallops
2) Sea Food Mix
3) Mussels
4) Shrimps - I wanted the whole thing but they only got fresh and very expensive, huge ones
5) Squid
6) Clams
7) 1lb of fresh salmon
For additives I used 1lb of broccoli, 1 pack of spinach, 25 sheets of of nori. From my stash which I don't use very often I decided to use almost whole bottle of reef chilli and around 3/4 of bottle of amino acids.
I used ninja blender and blend everything.
I mixed everything in a bucket using concrete mixer on a drill.
I packed everything to a zip bags and free.
In total it is 10lb of yummy food. The cost of ocean part was $75. I think all together around $100.
My thoughts of the process
1) It is a good idea to peel salmon, skin doesn't blend good. I ended up with a lot of bigger pieces of salmon skin but I am not that super worried because I noticed my anemones grabbed the bigger pieces.
2) blending nori, spinach and brocoli was a challenge. I added 3 caps of rodi which helped.
3) The final texture of the product is a challenge. I have both big and small fish, plenty of anemones so in my case I think everything will be consumed eventually but targeting to exact texture is not easy. Definitely take your time to research what blends with what and what should be bigger and what should be smaller parts
4) Messy, stinky process.
5) this food is "fatty" in texture. It clamps easily in the tank so I have to change the way I feed little bit. The food I used to buy (I don't remember the name but
They way I feed my fish is to put a small portion in the cup, pour rodi, wait few minutes and then strain everything so I am flushing most of the liquid from the food. By that I hope to minimize phosphate intake. I will monitor my tank daily for few weeks to see how much phosphate/nitrate I add which my tank doesn't metabolize.
The end result is nice from my point of view. I don't know what will be the impact on that closed ecosystem though. Time will tell and I will post an update in few weeks or when I see something bad. So far so good, fish enjoy my food
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QPtyV4evaRAgU5vu6
I hope this post will help anyone who is interested in DIY food.
For more than 2 years I have fed my fish using Rod's Food Herbivore Blend. Despite the high price I noticed this is the best value because there a lot of "meet" and not that much water. A small piece contains a lot of food so small package lasts me for 1-2 months. Couple weeks ago my LFS told me the price skyrocketed like 60% up so I bought mysis shrimp from Hikari but honestly I don't like it that much - too small for my fish. So I decided to do what I wanted to do which is my own frozen food.
In this thread I would like to share my experience with my first frozen food. I didn't do much investigation about exact amounts or what brings what. I read 2 threads and I combined list of ingredients and I purchased what I had locally without looking for weeks exact, very expensive ingredient. I live near Raleigh, NC and we have a Grand Asia Market nearby. I have no idea if this story has a good selection of stuff since I don't have anything to compare but most of ingredients were available. I try to run my tank on budget so picked mostly frozen stuff. They had many nice fish I've only seen during scuba diving but they were on a pricey side so this is what I purchased:
1) Bay Scallops
2) Sea Food Mix
3) Mussels
4) Shrimps - I wanted the whole thing but they only got fresh and very expensive, huge ones
5) Squid
6) Clams
7) 1lb of fresh salmon
For additives I used 1lb of broccoli, 1 pack of spinach, 25 sheets of of nori. From my stash which I don't use very often I decided to use almost whole bottle of reef chilli and around 3/4 of bottle of amino acids.
I used ninja blender and blend everything.
I mixed everything in a bucket using concrete mixer on a drill.
I packed everything to a zip bags and free.
In total it is 10lb of yummy food. The cost of ocean part was $75. I think all together around $100.
My thoughts of the process
1) It is a good idea to peel salmon, skin doesn't blend good. I ended up with a lot of bigger pieces of salmon skin but I am not that super worried because I noticed my anemones grabbed the bigger pieces.
2) blending nori, spinach and brocoli was a challenge. I added 3 caps of rodi which helped.
3) The final texture of the product is a challenge. I have both big and small fish, plenty of anemones so in my case I think everything will be consumed eventually but targeting to exact texture is not easy. Definitely take your time to research what blends with what and what should be bigger and what should be smaller parts
4) Messy, stinky process.
5) this food is "fatty" in texture. It clamps easily in the tank so I have to change the way I feed little bit. The food I used to buy (I don't remember the name but
They way I feed my fish is to put a small portion in the cup, pour rodi, wait few minutes and then strain everything so I am flushing most of the liquid from the food. By that I hope to minimize phosphate intake. I will monitor my tank daily for few weeks to see how much phosphate/nitrate I add which my tank doesn't metabolize.
The end result is nice from my point of view. I don't know what will be the impact on that closed ecosystem though. Time will tell and I will post an update in few weeks or when I see something bad. So far so good, fish enjoy my food
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QPtyV4evaRAgU5vu6I hope this post will help anyone who is interested in DIY food.
