Making Dried Crayfish Food

[Shadow_Arbor]

Hi everyone,

Thought I'd upload a quick post about how I'm slowly fazing out all purchased fish foods and am transitioning too DIY dried fish food.

My first attempt at this was replacing the food I use for dwarf crayfish (Cambarellus sp.). I currently have two different tanks with two different dwarf crayfish species and was running low on food. After a lot of research I discovered the analytical constituents and composition I deemed best for my dwarf crayfish. After doing all the fun math, calculating dry weights of different ingredients, percentage of protein fiber and calcium each component added too the food I finally had my recipe. Some of the ingredients I used were: Spinach, Spirulina, Moringa, Krill, Bee Pollen etc. The analytical constituents are Protein 43.5%, Fiber 7.2%, Available Calcium 0.5%. The food also contains all trace minerals the crayfish needs to molt.

A lot of the credit for how too make this video comes from Mark's Shrimp Tanks. He has a nice video about a three ingredient dried food (not sure if it's ok if I link this video). I used this video as a guiding light, but heavily tweaked the recipe as I wanted many more different ingredients and much less filler.

Here are some images of the process and finished product:

Overall I'm very pleased with the results as the crayfish are devouring this food. I will need to test it long term and make sure I don't see any deficiencies and my breeding rates don't decrease. The next dry food I will be attempting is going to be for my Super Red Ancistrus. Later down the road I will also be making a Mineral food for my inverts, as well as a snail food.

 

Feel free to ask questions in the comments!

Edited February 9, 2021 by Shadow_Arbor

[Alesha]

@Shadow_Arbor - aw, I'm bummed your pictures didn't show up! It sounds like a really ambitious thing to make fish food. I'm curious if you bought the ingredients separately and then combined them, or if you actually dried some of them yourself, before grinding to powder? I'm thinking your pics would've answered those questions. 

Here's a helpful post for adding files:  

 

[Shadow_Arbor]

On 2/7/2021 at 12:52 AM, team fishes and shrimps said:

will you sell me dwarf crayfish?

Sadly that is not an option unless you currently live in Israel. I am currently living here and do not have the permits for export, sorry!

[Shadow_Arbor]

2 hours ago, Alesha said:

@Shadow_Arbor - aw, I'm bummed your pictures didn't show up! It sounds like a really ambitious thing to make fish food. I'm curious if you bought the ingredients separately and then combined them, or if you actually dried some of them yourself, before grinding to powder? I'm thinking your pics would've answered those questions. 

Here's a helpful post for adding files:  

 

Hi, how odd that my pics aren't showing up for you. They're showing up for me on my phone where I am not logged in. I don't think anything has changed on uploading files since day 1 of the forum but I'll check Lizzie's post to see if I made a mistake as I haven't been around in a bit, thanks for the help! I'll attempt to delete and re-upload them tomorrow morning.

Most of my ingredients I purchased as either dried leaves or dried powders (everything organic). The dried leaves i ground up myself. In the future, things like spinach and nettles which I can easily grow myself I will also dry myself but I'll need to see which is more cost effective.

 

[Streetwise]

If you add an externally-hosted image with an http address, it may not show in some browsers, because it is not considered secure on an https site like the forum. An image hosted on an https site would probably work, but the easiest thing is to just upload to the forum.

Image handling on this forum is one of its major advantages. The previous forum that I used has very limited per-user storage, with low resolution. When I ran out of account space, I had to switch to jumping through hoops to embed from Flickr. This forum is so much better.

Edited February 9, 2021 by Streetwise

[Shadow_Arbor]

14 minutes ago, Streetwise said:

If you add an externally-hosted image with an http address, they will not show in some browsers, because it is not considered secure on an https site like the forum. An image hosted on an https site would probably work, but the easiest thing is to just upload to the forum.

Image handling on this forum is one of its major advantages. The previous forum that I used has very limited per-user storage, with low resolution. When I ran out of account space, I had to switch to jumping through hoops to embed from Flickr. This forum is so much better.

Thanks for the reply!

How strange, I just dragged them from google photos to here instead of downloading them first, possibly messed up there. Will try and download them in the morning and re-upload. Will at you @Alesha when I do that!

[Streetwise]

@Shadow_Arbor, don’t forget that you can edit posts. I edit all the time because my grammar teachers live in my mind, rent-free.

[Shadow_Arbor]

@Alesha Done. Let me know if they're visible for you know!

[Alesha]

6 hours ago, Shadow_Arbor said:

@Alesha Done. Let me know if they're visible for you know!

Yes! Wow, what a process, too! Very impressive. I imagine it's very satisfying to know *exactly* what you're feeding. 

And I realize I'm so spoiled to be able to purchase from Aquarium Co-op, knowing Cory's already done his homework so I'm getting only the best ingredients. 

Thank you so much for sharing your process! 👍👍

[Shadow_Arbor]

2 hours ago, Alesha said:

Yes! Wow, what a process, too! Very impressive. I imagine it's very satisfying to know *exactly* what you're feeding. 

And I realize I'm so spoiled to be able to purchase from Aquarium Co-op, knowing Cory's already done his homework so I'm getting only the best ingredients. 

Thank you so much for sharing your process! 👍👍

Yes it definitely is great to know exactly what I'm feeding. I am currently in the process of developing foods specifically for my other aquatic inhabitants. The main reason I have decided to do my homework and create the foods is that the ingredients (including vitamin additives and the like) are relatively cheap, and the foods I have been feeding my critters are relatively expensive. I feed mainly Shrimp King foods and Vitalis (previously New Era) as these are the highest quality foods available. I can make myself the same foods (I would argue maybe even better quality but I am biased) for a fraction of the cost. This is a huge benefit as I am Starting University and money is about to be really tight.