I've decided my fish aren't eating well enough, and as their host (a nice way of saying I have captive fish...) I have to prepare better meals. So today, I'm doing food prep. 90% of the species I keep are small (under 6cm) insect eaters, but some feast on detritus and plant matter. Every insectivore eats the contents of its prey's guts for veggie matter.
I have 400 grams of mock crab (fish), 500 grams of cooked shrimp, a huge zucchini from the garden, some astaxanthin algae food and gelatin. I dislike the latter ingredient as it's not digested, but it seems to do no harm and has been in fishfood recipes since the 1920s.
This is a new recipe with the zucchini, which will be thinly sliced. Everything else goes into a grinder to become a mixed paste. If the zuccini cooperates, it's one that works well.
I never use old fashioned hacks from the past like beef heart. It was a clever idea before we could get easily digested by fish seafood, but hasn't been needed since the invention of the cargo jet and refrigerated containers. 50 years later, our hobby is as needlessly conservative as can be.
Frozen brine shrimp is mostly water, and I have a contact allergy to bloodworms. That commonly happens when we use bloodworms for a long time, as midge larvae (they aren't worms) have a protein people tend to react to. I have small fish and am not varying the diet enough to get good breeding results. So I invest less than an hour, freeze thin slabs of food, and snap pieces off to feed the tanks 3 or 4 days a week.
Past recipes have included peas, baby food carrots, spirulina, and different types of fish and shrimp. I picked up some inexpensive chicken feed - 100% soldier fly larvae, and I am considering adding it to this recipe. The dried larvae leave a slight calcium residue, and I don't know how the commercial preparers filter that out. I'll probably put about 250 grams in, if it grinds well.
I have 400 grams of mock crab (fish), 500 grams of cooked shrimp, a huge zucchini from the garden, some astaxanthin algae food and gelatin. I dislike the latter ingredient as it's not digested, but it seems to do no harm and has been in fishfood recipes since the 1920s.
This is a new recipe with the zucchini, which will be thinly sliced. Everything else goes into a grinder to become a mixed paste. If the zuccini cooperates, it's one that works well.
I never use old fashioned hacks from the past like beef heart. It was a clever idea before we could get easily digested by fish seafood, but hasn't been needed since the invention of the cargo jet and refrigerated containers. 50 years later, our hobby is as needlessly conservative as can be.
Frozen brine shrimp is mostly water, and I have a contact allergy to bloodworms. That commonly happens when we use bloodworms for a long time, as midge larvae (they aren't worms) have a protein people tend to react to. I have small fish and am not varying the diet enough to get good breeding results. So I invest less than an hour, freeze thin slabs of food, and snap pieces off to feed the tanks 3 or 4 days a week.
Past recipes have included peas, baby food carrots, spirulina, and different types of fish and shrimp. I picked up some inexpensive chicken feed - 100% soldier fly larvae, and I am considering adding it to this recipe. The dried larvae leave a slight calcium residue, and I don't know how the commercial preparers filter that out. I'll probably put about 250 grams in, if it grinds well.
