Making your own fish food

Does anyone make their own foods for their fish? Besides like cucumber, like cooking meat or something. If anyone makes their own fish food, let me know. I want to know how to make it! Thanks.

 

I make beef heart mix for mine .either make it into cubes (freeze) or just scrape some off with a knife and drop it in. It's super healthy and most fish will enjoy it, especially Discus!!

 

I make a lot of different foods.
First, you need to know what your fish eats. A plant eater and a carnivore have radically different needs.
I use frozen fish, shrimp, other seafood, avian vitamins, pea and carrot baby food, seaweed, gelatin, algaes - it all depends on the results you want and what fish you are feeding.

So I can offer recipes, but for which species?

 

What about an Anostomus Anostomus, Blood Parrot and a Senegal Bichir. NavigatorBlack

 

For blood parrots beef heart mix is good. There are a lot of other foods to try though

 

Where do I get beef heart mix? Also how often should I feed the beef heart? The only beef heart I've seen is the frozen cubes. Can I get ingredients from market?? bubble1807

Also you can put vitamins in? How do you know how much to put??
Is freezing foods the best?

 

Here's what I would do. To begin, beef heart was a substitute food - before air travel made sea food available and cheap, aquarists knew fish can't digest animal fats. Their fix was to buy the leanest mammal muscle they could get - heart. But it is way less trouble to use fresh fish in the same recipes.
I use a stick blender. I mix shrimp (yes, it's work) and white fish of any sort on sale with a vegetable element. For those fish some greens are good, especially for the Anostomus. But protein can be the main element. You can use any finely chopped greens, garlic if you wish, paprika for budget colour or astaxanthin algae powder if you can get it, spirulina if it's cheap enough, peas and carrots baby food - there, you have choice. I use a lot of seaweed, but I have easy access. Some use bird vitamins, as they are water soluble.
It is essential to have it well, finely ground though, as blood parrots have deformed throats. I really don't like hybrids, but I would never suggest anything harmful to them!
Then mix up enough knox gelatin to bind the now paste all together. Put it in large ziplock freezer bags (I make 2-3 pounds at a time) flattened to thin sheets (so you can easily break chunks off when you freeze it). Let the gelatin set, and you have a carnivore mix with veggie supplements.

If your partner or other house sharing people are not fish people, wait til they aren't home. It is not fragrant.

 

Where do I get beef heart mix? Also how often should I feed the beef heart? The only beef heart I've seen is the frozen cubes. Can I get ingredients from market?? bubble1807

Also you can put vitamins in? How do you know how much to put??
Is freezing foods the best?

They do sell them at most aquarium stores if you look in the frozen food section. If you buy a beef heart you NEED and I mean Need to make sure you take it apart from all the fat and veins. Then mince it probably around 3 times. I've added these powder vitamins before but you'd probably be better googling or asking if they are safe for them before adding them.

 

My LFS don't have beef heart by itself. They have the frozen beef heart San Francisco Bay brand cubes. Do they sell beef heart at markets? bubble1807 NavigatorBlack

 

Yes I was tanking about the ready cubes in fish stores. And I bought mine from a highly rated butchers so I knew that it was definitely fresh and healthy but yes you can buy them at markets.

 

The frozen cubes already have the veins and fat taken out though, right? bubble1807

 

Yes yes

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on products? Vitamins, or greens anything. Or like spirulina even. I want to freeze all the food I make for them and make my own frozen foods. Is it ok to add garlic guard to the cubes? Like feed with Garlic everyday? Is it bad for them? I know that they could be come super picky and only take food soaked in garlic as well, if I feed a lot of it.
NavigatorBlack bubble1807

 

Why would you buy expensive cubes, thaw them and refreeze them? Beef and goat heart were ingredients favoured until the 1960s, because better alternatives were not available unfrozen. The invention of cheap jet travel made the product obsolete.
Fish cannot digest mammal fats, so they made do with the lean heart, an imperfect food but the best they had.

 

I make snail jello for the snails.

For carnivores some like brine shrimp, and blood worms. I have heard of people breeding those pretty easily and inexpensively for their fish to eat.

 

Why would you buy expensive cubes, thaw them and refreeze them? Beef and goat heart were ingredients favoured until the 1960s, because better alternatives were not available unfrozen. The invention of cheap jet travel made the product obsolete.
Fish cannot digest mammal fats, so they made do with the lean heart, an imperfect food but the best they had.

They clearly said they wanted to MAKE their own... Many foods are made from animal fats, I mean what do some fish eat in the wild when something falls into the water. Also all the fat and veins are removed and it is heart so it's not classed as animal fat. Many very and I mean very experienced aquarists highly suggest beef heart so stop making a fuss, it's your own opinion, so keep it.
Back to the point, I'm not too sure what vitamins I put into it but if I remember I will update you! You can add thins like skinned peas to it I believe! I'd have a look at some recipes online and go from that (obviously add your own touch). Good luck !

 

I make snail jello for the snails.

For carnivores some like brine shrimp, and blood worms. I have heard of people breeding those pretty easily and inexpensively for their fish to eat.

Yes, baby brine shrimp will hatch in 12 hours and then you can grow them pretty easily but the babies are much more nutritious. You can make a hatchery with normal salt, baking powder and plastic bottles with an air pump.

 

stop making a fuss, it's your own opinion, so keep it.
Back to the point, I'm not too sure what vitamins I put into it but if I remember I will update you! !

That's quite a debating point there, bubbles. Fish diets have been intensely studied, through stomach content analysis from wild fish. Presenting up to date info based on research is not making a fuss. I'm just trying to be helpful, as you are.
Personally, slicing out all the veins, membranes, arteries etc in a beef heart seems unpleasant. Putting more nutritionally sound white fish in a blender is easier. I do believe we are trying to be practical and helpful, so why would it be making a fuss to suggest easier, more efficient solutions?
I haven't forgotten recipes. Avian vitamins are what the recipes suggest, as they are water soluble. They're an expensive solution though as once opened, they break down fast. I used them at first, but didn't replace them.

 

I've tried white fish before and my fish wouldn't even touch it for some reason, and it's very smelly. It really just depends on preferences

 

You need to experiment a little. As odd as it seems, the stuff sold here as mock crab has been a big hit with fish. It's very cheap.
I've probably made about 30 batches over the years (they last a long time) and every one has been a bit different. You improvise, adjust and hopefully improve.

 

All this information is amazing. So as far as vitamins, what about vitachem? Could I soak my fish's food in it? NavigatorBlack bubble1807 clk89

 

Soaking food in garlic juice might be good.

Oh and another ideal for food many do live daphnia too.

 

Vitachem looks interesting. I don't see why not.
I'm going to investigate that next time. Thanks.
I hatch brine shrimp daily, culture Daphnia outdoors during the warmer months, raise white worms as fish food to condition breeders and sometimes even raise laboratory type wingless fruit flies.
My insect eating fish (a lot of our smaller species) love the live food.
I make my own food mainly when I have a lot of fry to raise and move along as quickly as I can.
Variety in diet usually give you healthier, more colourful fish, especially if you get good fish to start with,