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Home Made Food
This recipe is a modified version of the “Sonja” recipe. Of course you should use ingredients best suited for your tank. The process is easy and fast. One batch should last at least a year in the freezer.
The “Key” to making your own food for your Reef tank is:
Particle size and Feeding portions. (Don’t over blend and Don’t over feed, a little goes a long way)
The ingredients used here were selected to cover several feeding groups:
Nori for algae eating fish (Tangs, Angels, and many others)
Shrimp, Scallops, Mysis Shrimp, for larger meat eating animals, (Fish, LPS, and SPS).
Golden pears for smaller meat eaters, and smaller polyps including some larva, (crabs, shrimp, worms, Gorgonians, SPS, etc.)
Instant Algae Paste is for all filter feeders, and larva.
The general idea is to prepare a food base that will cover all the animals in your tank with one feeding. The only draw back to this is with some foods that do better when slowly feed over time like Instant Algae. A drip mixture feed over several hours, of Instant Algae and water tends to be more beneficial.
One of the key benefits of making your own food is to cater to your tanks needs. If you have lots of fish, especially Tangs or Angels more nori may be required. Or if you had a SPS tank setup perhaps more meat on the smaller size would be better. You get the idea. The other benefit is you will know exactly what’s in your food. Ever wonder what’s in those food cubes?
What’s needed:
Blender
Large mixing bowl
Mixing spoon
Table spoon
Scissors
Freezer bags (I use quart size)
Ingredients: (Customize to your tanks needs),
Three bags of Nori, (make sure it’s not flavored or baked/roasted). Available at most grocery stores in the Chinese section.
1/4 lb Shrimp (fresh if possible), if frozen try and find out if phosphates where used to preserve the shrimp.
1/4 lb Scallops (fresh if possible), if frozen try and find out if phosphates where used to preserve the shrimp.
1 cup of Mysis Shrimp. Wash and strain so none of the juices/water from the manufacturer gets added.
6 large table spoons of golden pearls, (from Brine Shrimp Direct Juvenile Stage 800-1000 micron size)
30ml Instant Algae Paste (from Brine Shrimp Direct)
Mixing: This should make about 6 quart frozen glad bags of food.
Cut all the nori into small squares (1” by 1”). Place in mixing bowl.
De-shell the shrimp.
In the blender, “Chop” don’t blend the shrimp. 10 seconds. Add to mixing bowl.
In the blender, “Chop” don’t blend the scallops. 5 seconds. Add to mixing bowl.
Add the golden pearls to mixing bowl.
Add Instant Algae Paste to mixing bowl.
Slowly add Aquarium salt water and mix.
Mix slowly until all ingredients are mixed.
With table spoon, spoon into freezer bags. Smash down the food in the bad to create a thin layer of food. So breaking off pieces when frozen is easy. Also, date the bags, this way you will know exactly how old the food is. After some number of months it’s easy to forget when you made it.
Notes:
Don’t blend the nori, it will turn to mush and pollute your tank.
Don’t over blend (Chop mode) the shrimp and scallops, it will turn to mush.
You may not need to add all four cups of water, just use your best judgment as you mix everything together. More water is better than less. It will mix easier and can be put into the bags easier also.
The food chunk being feed to your tank should be thawed in a small cup of aquarium water before feeding. This is not a necessity, but as we discussed this at our last meeting, the one thing that stuck in my mind was better food disbursement in the tank if it’s thawed.
Good luck and have fun experimenting.
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