DIY fishfood recipe

[EggShappedFish]

EDIT: Although this recipe works ok, I have tested some more, and found out that Agar works best when boiled. Also I suggest using more of it than noted here.

A moth ago, I told you guys that I had tried making my own fish food. I have now been using it since, and I feel that it is safe to share with you.

I Although it may be daunting, making your own fish food is not that complicated. Making your own fish food, allows you to use fresh human grade materials and fine tune the ingredients to suite your fish. It is also quite affordable!

I did some research and got a lot of qualified help to get this recipe for fish food right, but you can change it, depending on your needs and what is available to you. I would not skip the spirulina and kelp though, because this wraps up many of the important nutrients that any fish needs

Ingredients

• 150gr mixed shellfish or shrimp
• 100gr cod fish
• 150gr peas
• 1 garlic clove
• ½ squash
• ½ carrot
• 1 teaspoon Kelp
• 1 teaspoon Spirulina
• 1½ teaspoon Agar (ideally more)

How to do it

Chop the carrot and squash into rough pieces and boil for 5 minutes. You don’t want to boil them but just make them tender. Add the peas and boil a few minutes more. I mostly did this because they were frozen and I wanted them to thaw. If you have a powerful blender, you may not even need this step, as your fish can eat the ingredients raw. I just needed them to soften for my smoothie blender to cope.

Add the vegetable, fish (in chunks) and shrimp into the blender. Add 1½ dl of water, as well as the Kelp and Spirulina powder. Blend until you have a lean mix. You may need to add more water if it won’t blend properly. I used some of the water that I boiled the vegetable in.

Pour the mix into a pot and heat it up, without boiling. You don’t want to cook the mix, but simply dissolve the Agar powder into it. I used 1½ teaspoons this time, but I will use 2 or 2½ next time, to get a more firm result. Stir for 3-4 minutes and let it cool for 10 minutes (this may vary if you use more Agar, so keep an eye on it).

Before it settles, pour into zip lock bags. Make a rolling movement, to get rid of all the air in the bag, before closing it. You can decide the thickness of the final plates, but don’t make them too thick, because they will be harder to break into chunks once frozen.

Let the bags cool, until he mixture settles and solidifies into a gel type of texture. Put the bags in the freezer and place them flat until they freeze.

 

When you want to feed your fish, simply break off a chunk, let it thaw and let the fish take bites off it. I used to break it up into smaller pieces, but this resulted in even more loose food floating in the tank. My fish will easily bite chunks off it, and I believe that most fish will be able to do so too.

My fish will spend hours cleaning up after feeding time, but will be ready for more food by the end of the day. I feed twice a day, some times changing it up with sinking pellets, or frozen artemia (brine shrimp) or blood worms.

Here is a video of my fish enjoying their breakfast this morning

 

Edited March 19 by EggShappedFish
Although this recipe works ok, I have tested some more, and found out that Agar works best when boiled. Also I suggest using more of it than noted here.

[Guppysnail]

Great job. I used to do similar for my pleco and snails minus the seafood.

questions:

Why cod and not salmon? I always hear so much about the nutritional benefits of salmon. 
 

Do you think there would be a benefit to microwaving the vegetables from raw with no water vs boiling to soften?  I microwave raw veggies to soften and put in the tanks now.  Most of my fish love them.  I always hear boiling veggies the nutrients leech into the water.  
 

[EggShappedFish]

On 3/13/2024 at 1:21 PM, Guppysnail said:

Why cod and not salmon?

First off, thanks for the compliments! It's my first try, but I am quite happy with the result myself too!

In regards to Cod Vs Salmon, I cant tell you for sure. I had a very interesting discussion about this on a different forum, with a user who was really well educated about the nutritional needs of fish. I got banned from there though, it so I can't even thank the person or ask for more details!

My guess would be that salmon maybe is very fatty compared to cod, so you get more protein per fat with cod. But I can't say with certainty that his is the case.

On 3/13/2024 at 1:21 PM, Guppysnail said:

Do you think there would be a benefit to microwaving the vegetables from raw with no water vs boiling to soften?

For sure! If you can control it? You don't really want them cooked as such. I just had to soften them up because of my weak blender. I only have a smoothie blender and not a proper food blender. If your mixer can manage raw veggies, I don't think you'd even need to treat them. At least for goldfish, they will eat it raw and I am sure that smaller fish would too, if it was mixed well enough.

[Guppysnail]

On 3/13/2024 at 8:40 AM, EggShappedFish said:

If your mixer can manage raw veggies,

Because of my experiments a few years ago I’m the proud owner of a great mixer I don’t use and 2 food processors 🤣

Yes it can handle raw but for my tiniest fish like Heterandria formosa I noticed there were still a lot of tiny veggie particles that were still just a hair to large for their mouths.  These would make a mess in the tank and it took 24 hours for the particles to soften enough for my snails and shrimp to clean up so I started microwaving just a touch before purée. 

Good point on the salmon vs cod protein fat ratio.  I was asking because my Mikrogeophagus altispinosus colony is out growing their 20L growout and I still can’t sex them. I was hoping to get salmon into their diet so they would color up and hopefully be easier to sex so I can sell off the extras and keep a pair.  

[EggShappedFish]

On 3/13/2024 at 2:10 PM, Guppysnail said:

I was hoping to get salmon into their diet so they would color up and hopefully be easier to sex

Oh that is a super interesting subject!
The ingredients that I used above, include spirulina and kelp powder. Both are algae. Spirulina is green and Kelp is red algae. Beside their huge nutritional values, they also boost coloration. I found a pretty interesting article about this here:

https://allnaturalpetcare.com/blog/2013/12/28/naturally-enhance-color-aquarium-fish/

Besides adding the spirulina and kelp powder to their food, maybe you could try feeding them some krill maybe?
The article also mentions adding a little bit of cocoa oil in the mix, but I haven't tried that personally